


The Strange Case

by Amerutan



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Illustrations, M/M, Mystery, Sentimental, Supernatural Elements, Victorian, Victorian era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2019-07-05 20:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15871485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amerutan/pseuds/Amerutan
Summary: “Strange things have happened in the last month, around me, Miss Walsh. Over the past few weeks, the servitude have told me of strange behaviors on my part. At night, they find me wandering around the house, awake but disorientated, as if I had not been born there, nor I had ever explored the corridors and the rooms. They also claim that sometimes I address to them in an unknown language. Things I do not remember. Do I make myself clear?”London, second half of the 19thcentury.Yami H. Muto, young and charming scion of an aristocrat family, seems to suffer from a sort ofneurosisthat leads him to seek help at Dr. Walsh’s office, in the squalid district of Whitechapel.From that day on, a series of surprising and frightening events will happen in front of the young lord’s therapist, involving the protagonist and his loved ones in something far greater and more dangerous than they could have ever imagined…“I have already hurt someone.”





	1. A strange case

**Author's Note:**

> (The characters belong to Kazuki Takahashi. This story was written without any profit.)  
> Hi, guys and welcome! Today I would like to share with you all a very old story I wrote ten years ago (Wow, ten years… I’m getting old, uh?). This is the first fanfiction I posted, and it means a lot to me. Thanks to it I had the pleasure to get into the Yugioh fandom, meet new friends and have a great time with them, so, when the past year I found it in a dusty corner of my pc, I decided to clean it up, draw a series of new illustrations, and share it with the whole internet.  
> I really hope you’ll give it a chance, and I really hope you’ll have fun reading this story, just like I had fun in writing it.  
> If you have any advice or opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!  
> Enjoy the reading!

**-Chapter 1: A strange case-**

 

  
The young lord came to my office at dawn on a chill winter morning, when the mist mixed with the dirt of the East End was still low, and the damp and cold alleys were beginning to crowd with beggars and workers.

I was going back home after my usual grocery shopping when, leaning against the handrail to my front door, I first saw the person who would soon become my patient.

Needless to say the young man, who was no more than eighteen years old, so elegant and tidy wrapped in his dark ulster coat, clashed with everything that in this occasion formed the shabby background of our first interview.

When I stopped at his side to enter the building, glancing at him from the corner of my eye, he moved and curled his lips into a charming smile, making a bow; a strong lotus fragrance reached me, towering for a moment over the strong smells of sewage on the dirt road.

“I beg pardon, ma’am. I am looking for the doctor. Dr. Walsh of Whitechapel.” he specified “Does he live here?”

  
“Might I know who is asking for the doctor, sir?” I replied, cagy, carrying my bags and opening the front door.

He introduced himself as Lord Yami H. Muto, son of aristocrats and peers of the realm, leaving me astonished.

“Lord…?!”

  
The sack of food almost fell from my arms, and some little beggars peeked out from the near street, where they sat almost regularly, staring at the potatoes rolled on the ground around us.

I bent down immediately to pick them up. The same did the young man at my side, to help me.

  
“So, would you be so kind to tell me where I can find the doctor?”

“Of course, my lord.” I answered, raising my face towards him, “Right in front of you.”

  
I left to the children the few potatoes remained at the foot of the stairs. Even before I could give them a sign of consent, they run and took them, using their jackets to contain the treasure just conquered.

The nobleman stared at me, as if to make sure I was not mocking him but, soon, the hint of surprise vanished behind his dark lashes.

  
“In this case, if you assure me that I can count on your complete discretion, there is something I would like to submit to you,” he revealed to me, while a gloom of restlessness flashed in his eyes, “as soon as possible.”

 

After having run inside my apartment, excited by the case and by the title that the unusual visitor carried with him, I clumsily left my bags on the kitchen table, jumped over the tabby cat that was resting in the corridor, and tried to make myself as presentable as possible in front of the mirror.

A few minutes later, I let him enter in my father’s office, inviting him sit to the big armchair in front of me.

After a brief and formal exchange of pleasantries, the session began.

“Tell me what led you here to Whitechapel, Lord Muto” I said, throwing occasional glances on his bizarre haircut, that the top hat had concealed until shortly before he entered the room.

  
“A much more extravagant fact than my hair, Miss Walsh.” emphasized the young man, showing a grin and the unmistakable air of who is accustomed to receiving attention from people because of his aesthetic choices.

  
Indeed, there were a large amount of weird boys and men like him, so called _dandies_ , who often visited the East End; I could say I was accustomed to their extravagances and excesses, but I had to admit that Lord Muto was one of the most weird-looking I had ever met...

“O-of course. Please, forgive me.” I coughed, lifting the tea cup before a black-toned book landed heavily down the near (unstable) walnut bookcase, risking to smash it over the table beside me, “Shall we start to talk about the very special case that you would like to submit?”

  
The young lord relaxed himself against the back of the armchair, which seemed to embrace him since his figure was so slim, and while he was looking for the right words to expose his problem, with discretion, I once again turned my gaze on the fascinating blond and magenta nuances of his hair, pausing again on the eyes of that peculiar and vivid twilight amethyst, surrounded by very long and dark lashes.

  
“Strange things have happened in the last month, around me, Miss Walsh. Over the past few weeks, the servitude have told me of strange behaviors on my part.” he began, “They find me wandering around the house, awake but disorientated, as if I had not been born there, nor I had ever explored the corridors and the rooms. They also claim that sometimes I address to them in an unknown language. Things I do not remember. Do I make myself clear?”

  
“You mean memory loss, my lord?” I came to his aid, evaluating every word, and sipping the tea left on the bottom of my cup.

  
“Yes, it happens to me more and more often. This is the reason that has prompted me to address an expert. I am afraid that these mysterious behaviors, sooner or later, may significantly damage the people close to me.”

  
After that revelation, silence fell in the office, and immediately I looked up at the young lord sitting in front of me, turning pale.

“I beg pardon. Did you just say ‘Damage the people’? Do you mean to say that these acts are not limited to the strangeness you have just mentioned?”

  
“From what has been revealed to me and by what I have been able to see, there is something in me that during these episodes which give rise to violence. Something really unpleasant has already occurred; I have already hurt someone.”

  
“Really?” I exclaimed, excited.

Lord Muto gazed at me, raising his dark eyebrows, took by surprise from my reaction.

“P-pay no heed, please, continue...” I urged, leaving him puzzled “My lord.”

  
“Well, it happened a few nights ago, to two of our maids,” he revealed, twisting his hands and carrying them to his chin, “and to my partner.” he added, taking on a very serious look.

  
With my hands clenched around the armrests, I hid with difficulty a smile of jubilation, attracted and intrigued by those facts and from those symptoms.

“Hm. How are these persons now?” I asked him with as much discretion as possible, supporting his  gaze. He seemed to be more relaxed after having revealed the fact.

  
“They are fine, Miss Walsh. The maids, Tea and Mana, have resumed service this morning.”

  
“I am glad to hear that. And did you have the opportunity to ask them some details about the accident?”

  
“I tried, but all this puts me in a position of greatest difficulty, since the maids run away whenever they see me. The menservants and the butler feel uneasy about speaking of what is happening… I am afraid my grandfather forbid them to talk to me. Last but not least, my partner is so rational and detached from what his mind fails to give a logical explanation, that sometimes I myself want to have nothing to do with him. If you knew him you would understand me, miss Walsh. We are both nervous because of those facts, and when I tried to talk again about the accident almost occurred to him, yesterday, he dismisses it and refuse to say a word.”

  
“I see.”

  
“I do not know how far this situation can still go on and go unnoticed. It is putting me and all my family to the test.”

  
“So, your loved ones are trying to show themselves rational and detached in the above situation...”

  
“Yes, and that is what I did, too. Till I hurt them. From that moment, I understood that I would not solve anything alone, without the help of an expert. So, Miss Walsh, would you like to solve my problem?”

  
I thought about his request.

This could have been a great opportunity, since my last case solved (if it so could be defined) dated back to six months prior, and it had not been particularly complex or intricate in its implications, since I had been looking for uncle Sebastian's tin cufflinks, then spending a week trying to reassure my neighbor that he was not afflicted by _Lycanthropy_ following the bite of a stray dog...

  
“Yes. I think I could find the time to devote myself to your case.” I said, trying to forget the place where I later found uncle Sebastian’s cufflinks.

  
“I have turned to Dr. Walsh’s to keep thorough discretion on these events. You might know that I have many enemies, Miss Walsh, more than you can imagine” he revealed, “The more the expert will be reserved, the more secure my case will be. Also, you are a woman.”

“I think so...” I nodded, thoughtfully, then starting at the last words of the young lord, “I mean…! Of course I am...!”

  
“I must admit you were far from the idea of a doctor I would have expected to find here, but, thinking about it... You are above suspicion. For more, women have a sensitivity and a sixth sense almost supernatural. This is exactly what my case needs.”

  
“Let me tell you, Lord Muto, that no one ever came out of Dr. Walsh’s office dissatisfied.”

To be honest, not many came in, but that was a detail that did not need to be mentioned at that time.

I was happy to see that a young nobleman was showing sincere trust in me; many others would have turned up their noses, saying that the role of women in the medical field should have been limited to nursing...

  
“So, what do you think? Will you be able to solve my case?” the young lord asked.

  
It was an unprecedented case for me... There were clues that went beyond what modern science had been before, even if some of those symptoms were not entirely new and referred me to sleepwalking.

But what about the other peculiar symptoms? Episodes of memory loss where the patient let himself act violent, expressed himself in an unknown language, and showed disorientation even in the home where he grew up…

Lord Muto stared at me, curious.

  
“Try to concentrate, my lord, and tell me: do your behaviours manifest in some precise time slot of night? Are they sporadic?”

  
“They are sporadic. The assaults both occurred during the early hours of the morning, but there is more: sometimes, even during the day, I become estranged by what surrounds me. When I regain consciousness, several hours or a few minutes have passed. The past week, my grandfather was telling me about a horse race, when –that’s what he told me- I suddenly stopped interacting and I looked at him as if I had never seen him before. Needless to say he was pretty scared.”

  
“Wait, let me guess this straight. You were reactive and, hm, _compos mentis_ in front of your grandfather, but at the same time you were… estranged by the situation?”

“I am afraid I can’t find better words to explain the fact.”

“Do you feel a sense of exhaustion when you ‘wake up’ from this sort of torpor?”

  
Lord Muto nodded.

“I often feel as if I have walked uninterruptedly for an indefinite time, even if I wake up in the same place. Miss Walsh, could this be _sleepwalking_?”

  
“I would exclude it, my lord. There are some features in your symptoms that I cannot relate to this disorder. I am talking about the fact that these episodes take place even during the day. Plus, normally a sleepwalker knows very well the way he goes during the night and he can repeat daily gestures even during his sleep phase, while, from what I have been able to understand, you were disoriented and...”

I saw him turning his gaze to the cat, which was watching him at a safe distance; the pet seemed willing to approach us to get some cuddles, but for some strange reason, after walking back and forth nervously as if there were invisible obstacles in the way, it gave up and went back to sleep on the old armchair next the office door.

  
Lord Muto sighed and took a hand to his temple. “Then I suppose… I am just losing my mind.”

  
“No, my lord, I think yours is the first case of its kind, but this will not prevent me from coming to an appropriate solution and diagnosis.” I reassured him, “You have not lost and you will not even come to lose your mind, my word. We only will need time and several sessions to better define your problem.” I said, returning his gaze.

  
“I am grateful to hear you say that. I know many colleagues of yours who would have already recommended me a retired life in some facility.”

  
“My office and my skills are here at your complete disposal, my lord. Each case is different from another, and I shall handle yours with the attention and seriousness it deserve. As soon as we can define the problem, we shall find a solution.” I said, watching him get up from the armchair.

“Very well. I have to thank you, Miss Walsh, for dedicating me your precious time. So, given the circumstances, I would ask you to start preparing your luggage immediately.”

  
“Yes, of course, my l-… luggage?”

  
The young man wore his coat on his shoulders and covered his tapered fingers with the lilac gloves.

“I wish to have you, as long as we need to solve the problem, in my abode. This way, you will have the occasion to dedicate yourself to my case with all the confidentiality and tranquility that it requires, and I will avoid creating worries to my relatives, leaving home too often. Unfortunately, they keep me under control after the last events.” he explained to me with a reassuring and determined gaze, “Plus, as I have told you, my enemies are as numerous as my friends, and in our _milieu_ is not a good sign to attend some kind of doctors or… a _mind detective_ , as you define yourself. I would sincerely wish to recover before these oddities come to indiscreet ears, damaging my loved ones.”

  
I stared in amazement, trying to take exception, but I could not ignore the reasons why my patient was establishing those conditions.

“Well...” I whispered with a thread of voice, “I guess you are right, but I am not used to acting in this way...”

  
“I have already thought of everything. I shall personally inform my family about the upcoming visit by a long known pen friend of mine visiting London. ”

  
I started.

“I beg pardon. Your pen-… what?”

  
“Make yourself ready tomorrow at six o'clock. I shall send a carriage to pick you up and, do not worry, you will be paid adequately.”

That said, he grabbed his walking stick, and with a bow that I clumsily responded to with a curtsey, he left the office.

“As you wish... Lord Muto.”

  
While the lotus scent abandoned the room together with its owner, the cat looked curiously at me from the armchair.

“Soriano,” I said, staring at the threshold in amazement, “we have just been hired.”

 

For the rest of the afternoon, preparing the luggage and risking, moreover, to close the cat inside the hat box, I did nothing but think about my new patient.

My first, real patient.

“I was so tense. I wonder who directed him here. What if all this was nothing than a silly joke?” I cried, looking at the pet in front of me “I mean... A weird noble comes here, in my father’s office, and starts to dictate the rules…! Good God! Did you hear him? He wants me to live under his roof! A pen friend! How he...!”

A joke? Could it be? Could he really have invented everything about his problem?

  
_I would sincerely wish to recover before these oddities come to indiscreet ears, damaging my loved ones._

  
The cat meowed.

“No, this could not be a joke.” I murmured “He wants to protect his family. If he really wanted to trick me, he would have been much more selfish, I am sure of it. Lord Muto is a good person. However... I have never seen a man like him before. Did you see his hair?” I asked to my cat, giggling.

When I turned my attention to him, its yellow gaze seemed to remind me that the money I would have earned with that job would allow us to eat much more appetizing food than cabbages and potatoes soup.

  
“Do not look at me that way, Soriano. I know you love my cabbages soup.”

I sighed, grabbing the cat and, furrowing my brow, I slid it down the bed.

  
“Anyway, this is a good opportunity for me. I finally have the chance to earn something by my own. The money that father left me will not last forever, and I absolutely refuse to live again under aunt Agatha’s roof. This is the time to show to my father's colleagues that I have nothing less than him. Dr. Walsh's office is back in business, Soriano!” I declared, excited.

The animal returned my enthusiastic look, out of expression, making me shudder.

  
“Good God, I am still talking to the cat...” I sighed, shaking my head and continuing to pack my clothes.

 

**Continue…**

**Next chapter up Wednesday Oct. 3rd.**

 


	2. The “Doghouse”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys and welcome back! This second chapter of “The Strange Case” is going to be very “intense”, many characters are ready to appear as protagonists, but also as a frame of this adventure! I really hope you’ll enjoy it!  
> I would like to remind you that [**I also have a Tumblr**](https://amerutan.tumblr.com) where I will post more material and insight about this story, like sketches and illustrations, soundtracks, notions and curiosities about the Victorian era, etc. So, feel free to come to say hi also there!
> 
> -The characters in this story belong to Kazuki Takahashi.  
> -During the reading you will find some numbers related to the _footnotes_ at the end of the chapter, in order to explain customs and traditions, way of saying and more about this peculiar era.  
>  -Please, mind that the story is set in the second half of the 19th century: references of psychological, neurological and biological nature are relevant to that historical period; the way of acting and thinking of the characters, customs, and ideals of the Victorian era do not necessarily reflect mine.  
> -If you have any advice of opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!  
> Enjoy the reading!

** -Chapter 2: The “Doghouse”- **

 

 

The darkness still embraced the city when the promised carriage, a black _landau_ towed by a pair of bay horses, punctually arrived at front of the office door, waiting for me in the pitch black alley.

Taking a deep breath, I walked away from the window, going through the room and straightening nervously the jacket and the skirt of my suit, till I paused in front of the mortally pale twin that the mirror showed me when I stopped at its side.

That morning I had a very terrible look; dark shadows under my eyes gave me a fatigued appearance and I had tried my best to fix my hair, but that night the rags had not done their usual job, so, what should have looked like soft brown curls, looked like spiraling wood shavings.

Sighing and shuddering as I resigned to that sight, I hid my head under my old bonnet.

I was holding my hat box, the umbrella, and pushing the trunk toward the entrance with my foot, when a knock was heard from behind the door.

“Here, Soriano.” I called the cat, turning back one last time to the corridor that led to the office and giving it a silent greeting.

“My respects, Miss Walsh” said the coachman, raising his hat in greeting, “Please, leave your luggage to me. I shall personally take care of them”.

When we went down the street, I stared a few moments at the carriage, amazed at finding out how much more impressive the vehicle was now that I was right in front of it. Immersed in that fog and in that palpable darkness, the latter seemed to have come directly from the underworld; an awe-inspiring sight that instilled deference and made me shiver.

“Good morning, Miss Walsh.” Lord Muto greeted me, opening the varnished door and leaving me surprised.

That day, instead of his ulster coat, he wore a dark blue cloak with a black fur lined collar about his neck, which reached his knees and danced around his thin figure, making his movements doubly graceful, just as a _Pipevine Swallowtail_ ’s. The precious brooch that closed the knot of his silk tie was adorned with small amethysts which mirrored the intriguing shade of his eyes. A very wonderful sight.

Compared to his elegance I was no more than a gawky moth, wrapped in my gray cape.

“My lord, I thought you would not come in person to-day.”

“I needed to be here in order to talk to you before reaching our destination, but we must not forget that it is my job to protect you from indiscretions, especially once we enter the West End.”

“You make it seems like I am taking a great risk.” I smiled, tensely.

“You are.” my patient told me, “There are no lions in London, but there are far worse things.”

“You mean journalists?”

“I mean bored people” he answered, tending me a gloved hand and helping me to get in the carriage, “You are going to work for me, and it is my duty to make sure that spending time in my company, especially outside the residence, does not hurt your reputation.” he pointed, then looking at my feet, “Oh, I see we are going to have the pleasure of a second guest.”

The cat jumped elegantly on the seat and sat dignified beside me, in the carriage, meowing as if in agreement at his words.

“I hope it does not inconvenience you in any way, Lord Muto...” I said, “Unfortunately, there is no one, here, whom...”;

“You do not have to worry about it, Miss Walsh. I like animals, and yours is really curious. It seems to have really exquisite manners.”

I curled my lips, throwing a suspicious gaze to my pet.

“Actually, I didn’t know it had any.”

 

  
During the first few minutes of the trip, my patient and I took the opportunity to settle on the details of the contract I had brought with me.

We did not take long to agree on the condition and the amount of my fee.

He read and accepted every clause; his only request was to add another point to the paper…

“As I have already mentioned, our family is very close to the Crown of England. What I consider necessary and indispensable to add to the contract is that you, Miss Walsh, shall maintain the utmost and absolute reserve on whatever you will hear and see from now on. Whether the issue is important, or not, I have to ask you for discretion. I cannot be swayed on this. Deal?”

I swallowed, uncertain, then I signed the contract as my patient had done just before me.

“Deal, my lord.”

After that, Lord Muto nudged open the curtain of the carriage window away with his cane, and peered around the area.

The center was still dark, silent and almost deserted, covered by a thin quilt of fresh snow that fell during the past night.

The first lights in Regent Street’s stores began lazily to light up, a few lamplighters were busy turning off the gas lamps in the avenues and some policemen silently patrolled the roads and the squares.

“We are now approaching Piccadilly Circus. Our residence in Mayfair is near.”

“Has the Season(1) already started, my lord? I have always thought that out of it, a good part of the West End’s residents left the town houses.”

“And usually we do. Unfortunately, our estate in Breconshire is very far from the city, and our family business has required us to occupy the town house for much longer, this year; but it is not a big deal. The London Season will start after Christmas, so the neighborhood will repopulate very soon. I am afraid to tell you that for the occasion we shall have to find you a chaperone.”

I hoped to be able to solve the case before the Season opened; I was not particularly excited at the idea of a chaperone, since no women in Whitechapel were used to living their youth with an old spinster always looking over their shoulders, but certainly I could not argue about my client's decisions.

I was in the West End, the _exclusive_ area, now, and having to live in close contact with London's high class from now on, and keep my identity undercover, a chaperone seemed the minimum requirement during the formal occasions: it was unthinkable for a high-born lady to meet friends or a single man without a chaperone always ready to watch over the girl’s reputation and… virtue.

I could do nothing but adapt to their habits.

“Breconshire? So, is your family's abode in Wales?”

My patient nodded.

“It is also known as County of Brecknock or, better, _Sir Frycheiniog_ in Welsh. A very enchanted place. Our family moved to those territories in the XVIII century.”

“I see. Is Hereford’s peerage ancient?”

“It is one of the ancient titles ever granted by the Royal House, even if currently I am but a mere _Honorable_. I am the _16 th Viscount Hereford_’s firstborn and _Your Grace the Earl_ ’s grandson, so, you can safely continue to address me with the title of ‘Lord’.” He explained further to me, “Speaking about relatives, Miss Walsh, I forgot to tell you, yesterday, but our fathers met each other a long time ago.”

“Our fathers?” I repeated, open-eyed, could not help but gazing at the young lord, in amazement.

“Of course. They met during a journey to India, five years ago and, according to the Viscount’ stories, they traveled together around the world for a while, almost two years, before they went their separate ways.”

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that story; so that was the reason why the young lord chose my father’s office.

“I remember those years very well. My father used to send me postcards from the places he visited” I nodded, despite I had an unpleasant memory of the time I spent during my relative’s absence; in fact, I was entrusted to aunt Agatha’s care, who tried to turn me into a “respectable married woman”.

She had never approved the decision of our family to live in Whitechapel...

When my father came back home and I told him about my misadventure with corsets, crinolines and lessons of good manners, he said he would teach me some of the most funny Indian tribes dances he learned during his journey; In this way, he said, it would immediately help me to forget how to sip tea in a correct way and walking with one’s chin high, like a real lady.

“Tell me, my lord, will I have the opportunity to meet the Viscount?”

“I cannot assure you. He is always traveling as he is a diplomat and he usually returns home without notice only for few weeks a year, in order to remind people that the Viscount Hereford has not completely disappeared. For my part, I hope he will join us for the Christmas holidays, but I would not be sure about it,” my patient sighed, shrugging his shoulders under his cloak, “however, we keep regular correspondence. When I told him about my recent problem, he immediately thought of Dr. Walsh’s office, assuring me that I would have found a qualified and discreet person. Are you alright, miss?”

“Lord Muto, there is something I would like to ask you. After you found out that the office was no longer directed by my father, what really allowed you to put so much confidence in me? My father passed on to me all his knowledge, but for all you know, I am but a woman who spends her life in Whitechapel… Nevertheless, you have looked beyond this.”

Our eyes met again in the dim light of the carriage, and I looked down, blushing, fearing to have offended him exposing my uncertainties, but shortly afterward I saw a reassuring smile bending his lips.

“It is right for you to show yourself skeptical, Miss Walsh, but I have to point that you have listed part of the reasons yourself, just before.”

“Did I, my lord?”

“You did.” Lord Muto assured me, “Like many of my fellows, I know very well that area of the city, since till some year ago I had the opportunity to frequent it more often than my abode. Now, despite the good habit stops me from exporting you the reasons, know that this has allowed me to know deeply the beauty and the brutality of this city more than you can imagine, and believe me when I say that I have never met a middle-class family like yours living in such a neighborhood, before.

All the bourgeoisie and colleagues of you and your father would try to live as far as possible from the East End, despising its name and the people who live there. Your family firstly could lead a quieter life like any bourgeois, in a district not too exclusive but much more decorous and less dangerous than Whitechapel. But you don’t. You live in a part of the city in contact with delinquents, but also with the poor and the sickly, and you are not afraid of all this, nor have you ever given up on helping them. This is what I saw when I met you for the first time, and this is what some of your neighbors revealed to me yesterday, before you arrived. You, like your father, are exactly where people really need help. This shows that Dr. Walsh’s office is run by people who take their profession seriously.

As I previously said, this is just what I need. Of course, the interview we had yesterday further confirmed it. I feel you can really help me… Mind detective.”

I looked at him, nodding incredulous.

Well, if those were his real reasons, now I could say I had no doubt about my patient and his intentions anymore.

“I am… I am deeply honored by the trust the Viscount and you have placed on my father and in my person, Lord Muto. I shall do my best to live up to my father's reputation for professionalism.”

“We are almost there, my lord” the coachman warned us, from outside the carriage.

“Very well” said Lord Muto, pulling out his watch from his pocket, “Miss Walsh, shall we start? I have a couple of minutes to let you know your role from now on. As I already mentioned, I informed my relatives about the arrival of a guest, the daughter of Viscount’s dear friend. Nobody must know the real reasons for your coming. Not right now, at least. Only one person is aware of everything, and I can fully trust his discretion.” he explained, “You can rely on him for anything in case I gave any sign of not being, hm.… myself.” his forehead furrowed, “My family must not be made aware of your identity. They all are very busy, and I do not wish to bother them more than I already have. If they found out I had turned to someone without consulting them first, especially a young lady, there is a risk it could cause problems and you, Miss Walsh, would risk not being able to fulfill your duties in the most optimal way.”

“Is there any particular information that I should be familiar with?”

“Of course. You should know that there is another guest in our house, and I would like to ask you do not let his manner trouble you, since he has the habit of analyzing and classifying people. I already mentioned about him yesterday, during our interview.”

After those last words my cheeks lost the little color they had.

“Oh, you mean... Wait. _A-analyzing people_ , you said?”

“My advice is: try to prove to him that you are not a threat. You will not matter to him, once his mind has been put at ease.”

“This is not very reassuring.” I thought.

A few minutes later, as announced, the carriage stopped short of a wrought iron wiper, when the sun began to timidly peep into the horizon and to dye the roofs of the houses and the hedges of their gardens.

With the help of my client, I disembarked the carriage, followed by my cat.

It had been years since I visited the very center of London.

That place had nothing to do with the other dirty suburban districts. Mayfair quarter displayed to my amazed eyes airy gardens, perfectly cut hedges, wrought iron gates and paved roads. The layout of the Queen Anne style houses made the neighborhood very neat and pleasing to the eye.

“Welcome to the _Doghouse_ , Miss Walsh.”

I turned to look in his direction, and my eyes widened in front of the villa that rose, elegant and majestic at the head of the street, introduced by a wonderful whitewashed chestnut boulevard and overlooking a small circular square where there was a white pearl granite fountain.

“ _Doghouse_ , my lord?”

“We are used to calling it in this peculiar way.” explained Lord Muto, shrugging, “The reason is that our family find this house so _essential_ and _welcoming_ , almost as a dog would find comfortable his bed.”

“I see...”

Well, calling that abode welcoming was more than good, but on the essential… We could have discussed about that for hours.

  
The charm that the snow-covered garden displayed was only a mere prelude to the luxury inside the house.

As I stepped over a little threshold, I was embraced by the fragrant aroma of freshly baked bread and by the pleasant crackling of the fireplaces, located in the neighboring rooms.

The entrance was a small corner of the house, with wood paneling lining the walls covered by family photos and watercolor pictures that I found simple and delightful. The hanging lamps, small wrought-iron hands which supported candles, lighted the place lend to it a very welcoming and pleasant light, that prepared the visitor to the glamour of the near rooms.

The solemn tapering of a mahogany pendulum clock, finally, gave its welcome to the guests along with the holly Christmas decorations, which ran through the walls and the handrail of the large and thick wooden stairway.

“Welcome back, my lord. My respects, ma’am.” the butler greeted us with a bow, next the entrance.

“Roland, please, alert the servants that our guest is here. As agreed, today we shall have breakfast in the dining room, so, while it is being served, tell Christopher and Thomas to bring Miss Walsh’s luggage into the guest room.” ordered my patient, leaving to him his top hat, cloak and gloves.

“As my lord wishes.” the man nodded, while a young valet took my cape, “If you want to follow me, Miss Walsh, one of our maids will show you the guest room...”

“Do not trouble the maids, Roland. They were very busy this morning. We will make an exception to the rule, this time.” gently intervened my patient “I shall take care of our guest personally. Please, do not mention it to the Earl.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Shall we go, Miss Walsh? Once you are settled in your room, we will enjoy a good breakfast.” Lord Muto said, moving to the second floor.

There, the wooden parquet, exactly as those on the ground floor, were overlaid by huge, soft and colorful carpets which muffled our footsteps, and the corridor was lined by several glass showcase and Japanese drawers, above which some exotic and delicate statuettes of Greek and Indian gods, small Chinese porcelain, daggers and other object of common use like mirrors, dragons shaped pipes, and hair clips adorned with gemstones made a great show of themselves, along with the majestic and expensive curtains that covered intermittently the near windows.

“This house is really charming, my lord.”

“I am glad you appreciate it. As you have noticed we love collecting ancient and exotic pieces.”

I stared curiously at a jade statuette depicting some dancing gods, inside one of the glass case.

“Does the Viscount contribute to enriching the collection?” I asked in amazement.

“With enthusiasm, I dare say. Traveling give him the opportunity to discover and send us real treasures.” my patient answered, “You know, since when I was a child, each of these objects has taught me something about other countries, and my father has always told it is good to keep our mind open to new cultures and traditions. This collection is not a mere matter of ostentation. There is more. Owning these antiquities is like creating a contact between us and the country of the object itself. Knowledge makes men less stupid and frightened, Miss Walsh.”

“I could not agree more, my lord.”

Surely all those antiquities gave a more intimate air to that wing of the house but, during our walk, a detail I found quite exaggerated, caught my eye: a natural size statue of a man which stayed on the center of the corridor, looking us, threatening...

“So there you are.”

Just a few moment after those words, I startled, realizing that what we had in front of us was a flesh and blood man.

“Too late. Keep your cool, Miss Walsh” my patient whispered, while the stranger, wrapped in a blue night silk dressing gown, came toward us with a unfriendly air, “Do not be scared. Remember, he can read your fear and your intentions in any wrinkle of expression.”

“He can...?! Wait, that is him? Good God…!”

I moved a step behind my patient, hoping naively not to be noticed, despite my height visibly exceeding.

“Yami, where were you? Your grandfather was worried about your absence.”

“Oh, really? And you were not, Mr. Kaiba?” my patient asked, calmly.

“Do not mock me. May I know, by grace, where have you been till now?” the man hissed, crossing his arms on his chest.

“Do not repeat yourself, Mr. Kaiba, I have fully understood your perplexity about my absence.” replied the young lord, “I thought I told you all that this morning I was going to the station to take our guest who, as you have surely noticed, is in front of you. But…! Did you take the bandages off? Am I wrong or the doctor ordered you…?”

“Say no more. You know there is only one person in the world whom can give me orders.”

“Our beloved Queen, I presume.”

“I.”

“Oh, how could I forget it?” said, sarcastically the shorter man, elevating his eyebrows.

So… That was my patient’s collaborator.

His appearance was quite different from how my fervid imagination had painted him.

He was very tall, and a rain of fine, soft brown hair framed his sulky yet attractive face; his traits were clearly oriental, and one of the details that most impressed me was his almond-shaped eyes that, despite his origins, instead of being the usual black or dark brown, were of a magnetic and intense blue sapphire shade, which created a marvelous contrast to Lord Muto’s amethyst eyes.

“At the station, you said? So, this is...” he whispered, throwing me a nasty look.

My patient sighed.

“Well, better late than never. Miss Walsh, allow me introduce my _fiancé_ : Mr. Seto Kaiba.”

I greeted him with a stiff, slight curtsey, but when my ears finally registered that word, _fiancé_ , I stood there, frozen, staring at the floor, goggle-eyed.

My patient's voice dropped into a distant echo.

 _My partner_ …

 _My partner_.

I thought Mr. Kaiba was a sort of collaborator... A colleague!

 _My fiancé_ …

 _My fiancé_.

I blushed.

What a terrible, terrible misunderstanding from my part! Such an embarrassing situation lord Muto put me in!

Mr. Kaiba was his live-in lover!

“Hm. Was that detail really necessary to mention, Yami?” murmured the man to the young lord.

I raised my eyes up to them, hoping the two men had not noticed my surprise and my embarrassment.

“I am…” I said, in front of that intelligible expression that never seemed to change behind the dark fringe of Mr. Kaiba “I am p-pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr...”

“I am afraid I cannot say the same about you, Miss Walsh. You have come to London in a very unfortunate time, and Lord Muto, here, has not given us time to get used to the idea of a guest. I would have appreciated more notice from your part.” Replied the man, glancing at his partner.

An embarrassing silence followed the cold words of Mr. Kaiba.

Under my skin, muscles and tendons tensed so much that I felt like I was undergoing a quickened process of petrification…

“This is dreadful of you, Mr. Kaiba. After all, you are a guest, too. Did you forget? Please, do not mind him, Miss Walsh.” my patient intervened, noticing my dismay, “He always says the worst words when he wakes up on the wrong foot.” he explained to me, “You will have plenty of time to get to know each other better. Follow me, I assume you want to set yourself up to the best.”

“Mr. Kaiba” with my face reddening, I farewelled him and followed Lord Muto, while the slender figure of the man disappeared once we turned the corner of the corridor.

“I am so sorry for what happened, miss. As I suspected, Mr. Kaiba was lying in wait of us.”

  
Once I was left alone in my room, I immediately closed the door behind me and a sigh of relief broke from my lips.

“I suspect Mr. Kaiba was the reason why Lord Muto wanted to add that clause to our contract(2)...”

The man’s harsh words still echoed in my head, and the image of the two men next to each other, united in that relationship that I had not been careful enough to grasp from Lord Muto’s words, made me feel uncomfortable.

“What’d I get myself into?!” I exclaimed, feeling my cheeks burning and hiding the face in my hands “Such a situation. Do his relatives know and allow this? Anyway, Lord Muto could have been more specific about it.”

The cat sat down in front of me, meowing two, three, four time, lazily, while I slowly lowered my hands from my flushed face, frowning.

“What do you mean by “ _You are the detective_ ”!? Do not mock me, Soriano”.

I rolled my eyes.

“It is just… the discovery took me by surprise, that is all!” I declared, crossing the arms on my chest, feeling my head getting heavier and my thoughts more and more confused.

“Well, after all… This is not my business. If he can accept the fact that a woman can be his doctor, I suppose I can deal with their relationship. I must forget it. I have been hired, the agreements have been made and I shall have to do my job. Keep myself focused.”

So I slowly began to wonder how I would have to organize myself for the next few days.

I would have been presented to the whole family and, moreover, I had to keep myself under cover for a time that was far from being defined, without any suspicion: neither the family nor the servants.

How could I get information from all the witnesses in the most discreet way possible?

The cat jumped over the bed, stretching and curling up on the duvet.

“You know what, Soriano? First of all, it will be better to meet the family. For the rest, I will figure it out later. One thing at a time.”

I paced up and down the room two or three times, mentally revising all the instructions my patient gave me during the trip, then I pulled out the suit jacket and I tried again to make myself presentable in front of the mirror, rinsing my face with fresh water and stroking my curls with my fingers, hoping to revive them.

“Why do I always look like a scarecrow...” I thought, fixing the brown locks behind my head with a bow-shaped barrette “No way. This is the best I can do for now.” I sighed, leaving the room.

  
When I entered the living room, Lord Muto had changed his suit and he stood in front of the window, occupied in a conversation with a man with long silvery hair, who sported a kindly and playful smile.

“… do not shrug your shoulders, my fellow. I am telling you the truth. Long story short, Mrs. Bennet wanted to impress her English friend with one of those pre-Raphaelite painting so popular in Europe these last years, but when the Duchess saw the ‘scandalous’ masterpiece hanging in the dining room, she was about to faint. When the poor Mrs. Bennett, agitated, tried to solve the problem, she passed by the lit fireplace and immediately the train of her dress went up in flames(3). What a night. We never saw the Duchess in New York City anymore from that day on! Anyway, I must confess my concern. If Americans will continue to stubbornly follow the European trends in such detail like Mrs. Bennett does, we will risk extinction.” the man was telling him, amused.

The young lord, noticing me standing on the threshold, invited me to reach them.

“Ah, please, Miss Walsh, come forward. Pegasus, I would like to introduce you our guest. Miss Walsh, this is Pegasus J. Crawford, Mr. Kaiba's business partner. He joined us from New York.” he introduced us, “Pegasus is the trustworthy person I was telling you about.” he added.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Walsh.” Mr. Crawford greeted me in a soft, lilting American accent, lifting my hand then kissing it gallantly.

  
“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Crawford.” I replied, surprised by the fact that Mr. Kaiba's colleague seemed to be his exact opposite.

“Lord Muto told me that you already had the opportunity to meet my business partner. Don’t be afraid because of his cold welcome. From what I seemed to understand, he was in his best mood!” the American revealed.

My patient held a smile: “Oh, Pegasus, if Mr. Kaiba heard you now...”

“I shall pretend I never heard, then.” hissed the man in question, behind us, interrupting our talk, “Pegasus, weren’t you supposed to be leaving for New York yesterday, once completed our business?”

  
“Really? Didn’t I tell you, Kaiba-boy? Just as I was leaving, our friend expressed the desire to have me here for the Christmas holidays. My luggage will arrive in the afternoon, by the way.” smiled the man, “You know how it is. Lord Muto’s wishes are my command. I could not be so rude as to refuse his invitation.”

At that moment I wish I possessed the same _nonchalance_ of Mr. Crawford, because Mr. Kaiba's cold eyes passed quickly from the American to me, making me shiver again.

“Lastly, because of my partner’s wishes, this house is turning out into a hostel.” he muttered.

Upon my word, such a ill-mannered man! His good looks was directly proportional to his bad temperament and his tongue was more sharp than a knife!

The butler appeared at entrance of the room.

“My lord, Mr. Wheeler is here. Without calling card(4). Again.”

“Then release the dogs and set them upon him.” murmured Mr. Kaiba, grasping the newspaper that one of the valets was carrying him on a tray, and throwing himself on the armchair.

“Do not dare to listen to him, Roland. I met Mr. Wheeler yesterday in Piccadilly and I invited him for breakfast, this morning. I forgot to tell you. Welcome him in, please.” intervened Lord Muto, before the butler executed Mr. Kaiba’s menacing order.

He then addressed another valet.

“Michael, tell my brother to reach us, please. He is horribly late, this morning.”

Mr. Crawford and I turned our gaze to the threshold, where a young, blond man dressed in a reddish brown crumpled walking suit and a heavy coat was coming in.

The butler at his heels was trying desperately to take his gloves and top hat off his hands.

“Good morning, Mr. Wheeler.” greeted him my patient.

“Good…” panted the latter, very close to a faint, “Good morning, my lord. Gentlemen, Ma'am, please, forgive my delay.”

“You seem a little peaked, Mr. Wheeler!” the American observed, “Gosh, I didn’t see anyone so breathless from the days of the _‘49 Gold Rush_ , in California!”

A little peaked? Poor man. He seemed to have had a long run from Paris to reach the house...

“Indeed, sir” the man answered, taking off his coat and leaving it in Mr. Roland’s hands “This morning, at the door of my apartment, I again found three threatening Great Danes waiting for me. And even to-day they were very similar to someone’s!”

All eyes of the group shifted to Mr. Kaiba, engaged in reading the newspaper; but before Mr. Wheeler could address a word to him, a worried voice went up the stairs in front of him.

“Joey, what happened?” said a small copy of my patient, coming to us “Why are you so pale?”

I looked at the young man, open-eyed, then I immediately turned my gaze to Lord Muto, who was still by my side. However, i had to look twice to make sure that he had not gone away and then returned a few inches shorter.

Unbelievable. That little boy looked exactly like him!

“Miss Walsh, he is my younger brother, Lord Yugi A. Muto. And here we have Mr. Wheeler, a dear childhood friend of us.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Miss Walsh.” said the blond lad.

“Miss Walsh, it is a pleasure. My brother told us a lot about you… in the past twenty-four hours.” smiled timidly Lord Yugi.

“Oh,”I smiled in return “I hope the past hours have not been too boring to sustain, my lord.”

“Of course not” he giggled, while I stared at him more carefully.

In fact, at first glance the two brothers seemed to be twins, but it did not take much to realize that the bizarre haircut and the vivid violet eyes were the only thing the two shared.

Unlike his older brother, most balanced, charming and ruler of an admirable etiquette matured through time and experiences, the younger Lord Yugi was still immature and had a more spontaneous and naive way to expressing and showing himself in front of the people, which I found very pleasant and friendly.

“Gentlemen, ma’am, breakfast is served.” announced Mr. Roland, appearing again in the door.

Chatting, everyone took place at the table.

They were a very lively family, but I noticed that a place were still empty, despite the dishes being arranged there too, by the valets.

“Will Your Grace not join us for breakfast, Yugi?” asked my patient, and with a sign of the hand he gave order to the valets to approach the dishes.

I started on my seat, when I noticed all those men in their anthracite gray livery move simultaneously around the table like elegant dancers and encircling us with trays full of delicious food.

“This morning he received a telegram from Brecon and he came out shortly afterwards.” the young brother answered.

“Nothing serious, I hope.” the American said.

“I suppose it has to do with Henrhyd Castle.” Lord Muto sighed, “The little church in the old wing of the estate suffered considerable damages after the intense snowfall, the past month.”

“That is because that ruin is unstable.” said Mr. Kaiba, “Keeping it in that state is a useless expense of money. The best option would be to raze it...”

“It is out of the question.” replied my patient, calmly, “In that church there are very old frescoes and those ruins are an asset of inestimable value. I am sure the Earl will do as much as possible to bring it back to its ancient splendor.”

“I am sure of it, too.” Lord Yugi smiled, nodding pleasantly across the table, “You know, Miss Walsh, our ancestors have lived in that castle for generations since Elizabeth I.”

“It must be a very charming place.” I nodded, with admiration.

“How extraordinary!” Mr. Crawford said, surprised, cutting his kidney pie, “Living in an ancient castle. I couldn’t imagine!”

“Why do not you buy a manor, Pegasus?” asked my patient, “In North of Brecon there are some in excellent condition, I may put a good word for you with Mr. Taylor.”

“Plus, you would give Mr. Taylor a great opportunity to guide you through those wonderful lounges. He loves to be a tourist guide to Americans and talking for hours about Queens and Kings.” Lord Yugi added.

“Perhaps even too much” added Mr. Wheeler, lowering his voice and turning to Lord Yugi, sitting in front of him “Promise me that the next time we visit a castle you will keep me away from that man.”

Lord Yugi giggled behind his napkin, after those words.

“And you? What do you think about it, Kaiba-boy?”

“Kings, Queens and ancestors...” muttered the business partner, “I am sure they would be grateful if only you all would avoid constantly naming them every day and let them rest in peace under their rubble and dust.”

“What? I was talking about buying a manor...!” cried the American with a theatrical _moue_.

Mr. Kaiba ignored him.

“Try for once to figure out the situation from an economic point of view, Yami. Managing your family’s accounts is giving me gray hairs! What benefits has it brought you, wasting money to keep a couple of old stones stacked one on the other?”

“Old stones?” my patient repeated, frowning and kindly rejecting the third course that the valet was serving him, “Those stones, as you inappropriately call them, constitute the basis of today's empire. Preserving the ancient places of our _ancestors_ is the minimum we can do to transmit our roots to the new generations. Upon my word, Kaiba, what a greedy mentality. Can you not think of anything other than cold profit.”

“I cannot think of anything other than progress and safety; something that continues to be slowed because of your attachment to your so called roots.” he pointed, “About the ancestors, what a splendid heritage they have sent us; a bunch of dandies that spend the days in those frivolous clubs, speaking ill of each other, and wondering which tie knot is more fashionable that week. Let me remind you who to thank for the recent progresses. Thank the merchants, the scientists, the entrepreneurs… People who have nothing to do with high-sounding titles.”

“People who, if I am not wrong, are quite happy to be subsidized by the nobility. Many nobles are willing to finance the men you just nominated, Mr. Kaiba. May I remind you that our beloved late Prince Albert was the first to believe in a perfect balance between past and future?”

“Oh, please...” The smile of challenge that had gone painted on the thin, pale face of Mr. Kaiba vanished, “Well, that man was one of the few with a bit of wisdom and common sense.” he muttered.

“My dear fellows, if there is hope for you two to agree on something, then there is also hope between America and England.” Mr. Crawford intervened, turning his gaze to me after having sipped his juice, “My, my. I must confess that I sometimes feel a bit of envy for them.” he whispered.

“Envy, sir?” I asked him, puzzled, “They just had an argue...”

“Do not be fooled by the appearance, Miss Walsh. It is good that you know that threads and little challenges are integral part of Kaiba-boy and Lord Muto’s relationship. Over time, I am sure you will get used of it.”

“I am not sure I will never get used to this… “ I thought, growing pale, then I turned my eyes on my patient’s partner, “Tell me, Mr. Kaiba, may I ask you what exactly your business is?” I said curiously.

“Market” answered the man, hurriedly.

“Market? Oh, really? Which market? Covent Garden?”

A strange silence filled the dining room, and the diners looked at me, becoming ghostly pale.

The valet, who was serving the last rashers of bacon to Mr. Wheeler, slipped it into his lap, and every embarrassing second of that moment was marked by the metallic and solemn tick of the pendulum clock.

An expression of perplexity came over Lord Muto’s face, his young brother held his breath becoming as violet as his eyes, and Mr. Wheeler groaned, realizing that the bacon dropped onto his trousers by Michael, was still hot.

Needless to say that Mr. Kaiba’s eyes where two disks of dark blue fire.

I bit my lip, confused by all those reactions, but before I realized anything, a sound interrupted that dramatic moment.

A giggle that rose to my right from Mr. Crawford, who went off into fits of laughter.

I looked at him, wide-eyed.

“Hm, Miss Walsh...” timidly, Lord Yugi came out of his silence, “Mr. Kaiba of course was referring to the financial market.” he reveled, “Have you ever heard about the _London Stock Exchange_?”

After that reveal, it was my turn to hold the breath.

“Good God!” I exclaimed, getting up from the table while the man did the same, “Mr. Kaiba, I-I am terribly sorry, I misunderstood! It was not my intention…”

“Roland.” the man called, ignoring me and taking up his gloves and coat, wearing them as if nothing had happened, “Is my hansom ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do not wait for me this afternoon. I have some work to do and I have to go to the bank for a meeting with Taylor.”

“As you wish.” nodded Lord Muto, while the door closed behind the man.

Mr. Crawford wiped a tear from his eye and regained composure.

“C-Covent Garden’s market! Extraordinary! Amazing!” he was still giggling, raising his hands in wonder.

I sat down again, burying my face in my hands, with a bad fight.

I was officially on the black list of Seto Kaiba.

 

CONTINUE. (Next chapter up Saturday Nov. 3rd)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)London Season: Annual period when it is customary for members of a social elite of society leaving their country houses and moving to the city center to hold debutante balls, dinner parties and charity events. The Season played a role in the political life of the country, but also provided an opportunity for the children of marriageable age of the nobility and gentry to be launched into society, in the “marriageable market”. It officially took place from May to August, but in London it often began in February when people slowly started to reach their town houses in Mayfair.
> 
> (2)Homosexuality during the Victorian Era: Having to deal with the concept of “Homosexuality” was very complex for the people of that era, since the society (the crown of England first, run by Queen Victoria) firmly rowed against this "way of being". Laws for society combatting same sex relations have dated back to the 16th century, and much of British society deemed homosexuality as “the worst of crimes and illnesses”. This 'unspeakable' act threatened the stability of Victorian society so much so that the concept of a homosexual identity did not exist in this period. This does not mean that citizens did not know the characteristics of these men, and they had a great distaste for them during the 19th century. Being homosexual in Victorian society was very rarely discussed, and when discussed there were severe repercussions for those men in question, because they strayed away from the ideals of masculinity, the family life, and what it meant to be fundamentally a “respectable citizen”.
> 
> (3)Flammable dresses: It was rather common for a woman of the Victorian era to risk her life by coming into contact with flames (candles, cigarettes, fireplaces, gaslights…). That’s because their crinolines and dresses’ s trains were made of flammable fabrics as cotton muslin, bobbinet, gauze, tarlatan, and often dyed with chemical pigment as mercury, arsenic, vitriol. Famous women died because of this kind of accident were the dancer Clara Webster, who was performing a ballet when her skirt caught fire; or sisters Mary and Emily Wilde (Oscar Wilde’s half sisters) during a Halloween’s party: while one of the sisters was dancing, her dress caught fire and the other sister immediately rushed to help her, catching fire herself.
> 
> (4)Calling (or Visiting) card: They were special cards to announce a guest’s arrival. The essential convention was that a person would not expect to see another person in her own abode (unless invited or introduced) without first leaving his calling card for the person at her home. If no card were forthcoming in return, or if a card went sent back inside an envelope, a personal visit was thereby discouraged.


	3. Witnesses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, and welcome back to the third chapter of this story. I hope you all have had a nice and spooky Halloween!  
> Before leaving you to the new chapter, I would really like to thank all the people who left a kudos, who have reviewed or simply dedicated their precious time to read these first chapters. You have no idea how much this means to me.  
> Before publishing this story and receiving these good responses, I was very uncertain and scared.  
> Knowing that you are appreciating the illustrations, the atmospheres and the style of the fanfiction makes me really happy!  
> This month the chapter will be a little shorter, but I hope you enjoy it.  
> As always, feel free to leave me advices and let me know what you think.  
> I wish you all a good read!

** -Chapter 3: Witnesses- **

 

“I am terribly mortified about this morning, Mr. Crawford. I must apologize to Mr. Kaiba as soon as possible.”

Even a walk in the garden could not calm my nerves down after breakfast.

Unintentionally, I had seriously insulted a person, and since that had occurred, I could not help but continue to relive that outrageous scene, cursing myself and my mouth, certain that in the days to come, things could go even worse.

“Do not overthink it, Miss Walsh. Kaiba-boy is a strong man. I am sure he will overcome his shock.” the American giggled, still amused.

“Oh please, do not mock me, Mr. Crawford. The situation is desperate…” I cried, while we passed some bare bushes of roses.

The first snow had already fallen several weeks ago, and the grassy mantle, the mute Venus statues lurking in the driveway and the trees were already abundantly covered by it.

“Tell me, rather: what kind of impression did you get from Lord Muto?” asked the man.

“He seemed to me the farthest person from perpetrating violence against someone. Sir, may I ask you the way things went down?”

The man shook his head and curled his lips: “Unfortunately, I was not here when the fact occurred, so I am not aware of the incident's dynamics. Of course, I tried to talk with Kaiba-boy, but...”

I sighed, nodding.

“But nothing doing. I see.”

And… After the bad impression I made during breakfast, I doubted that in the days to come I could have been able to get information from my patient’s _fiancè_.

“How do you intend to proceed?”

“First of all, we must not forget the two maids, Tea and Mana. They were the first victims, so I shall start by talking to them. From what I was told, the two girls haven’t had the courage to reveal to Lord Muto what happened that night yet, but I might have more success. After all, it would not be difficult to get information from the servants.”

“True. Some kind of maids are by their nature great chatterers.”

We stopped for a few moments, then Mr. Crawford's gaze fell on me, noting that I continued to turn my back to the house, tensely.

“Won’t you go in, Miss Walsh?”

“Well, I… “ I stammered, managing to get a smile from him, “I need to think how to mentally organize… you know, my work… I think I will spend a few more minutes here.”

“Very well, as you wish. If you need me, I will be in the library.” said Mr. Crawford, with a nod of his head, heading toward the entrance, “As I told you, Miss Walsh.”

“You told me what, sir?”

“Do not overthink about this morning.” he smiled, making my cheeks blush and leaving me to my thoughts.

I sighed, staring back at the bare avenue for some minutes, till my nose became a reddish icicle because of the biting chill of the breeze. In the distance, a bizarre snowman with a very old top hat on its head stared at me with lopsided eyes.

Oh, it was really stupid of me wasting time that way just because of that _little_ scene during breakfast _!_

I would have done better to take advantage of the absence of Mr. Kaiba to get work done, rather.

“There is no time to lose.”

I just had reached the portico, when the parquet floor began to vibrate under my feet. The door suddenly opened wide in front of me and I was reached by three large, dark shapes that jumped out, toppling me to the ground, followed by some light footsteps that stopped by my side.

“STOP, TROOP! We have just run over something!” exclaimed a childish voice, rising above the lively and loud barking.

I did not raise my face from the snow, to discover the nature of that unusual noises; at that moment I was too busy making sure I had nothing fractured.

From the shoulders to the tips of the fingers, every muscle seemed to send me reassurance...

“What? A woman? Miss, is everything alright?”

Slowly, I raised my face, seeing a hand stretching out to help. It was a very small hand covered by a wool glove; nevertheless, I grabbed it and I sat down, looking around me.

“I am fine, thanks.”

A very young boy with dark, coal hair and deep blue eyes, wearing an elegant bottle-green coat, stared at me with curiosity; at his side, three Great Danes were politely seated, staring at me, watchful.

“Oh! Keep those dogs away from me!” I exclaimed, retreating to the sight of the three animals, which were receiving abundant cuddles from their young master, becoming docile as kittens.

“They are Timaeus, Critias and Ermos.” the young boy introduced them, “It is strange they did not bite you.”

“W-well, maybe they have the judgment to evaluate what they just did right now is enough.” I replied, getting up and brushing snow and grass from my overskirt.

“I think they got tired after their daily chase of Mr. Wheeler.”

“So, those were the three that chased him, this morning?” I asked, open-eyed.

“Yes. Whenever he comes to visit us, they leave the enclosure and sit in front of the door of his apartment, waiting for him” he told me, “They can smell him from the other part of the street. Upon my word, I do not know how they do it. But it is a pretty fun game, so I let them do it.”

Poor Mr. Wheeler, I thought, bitter about his fate. Fortunately, he seemed to me a fast man or who knows what the Great Danes would have done if they just landed on him.

“May I ask you your name, young boy?”

“My name is Mokuba. Anyway, it is rude of you to ask questions before the landlord. I suppose you are Miss Walsh, the person Yami spoke to us about, aren’t you?” asked him, crossing his arms to his chest, and tightening his eyes in a way that was not entirely new to me.

“Yes I am.” I smiled, “Very pleased to meet you.”

“You claim to be a _friend_ of Yami, but” continued Mokuba, marking the word _friend_ in a rather hostile way,“you are probably aware that he is engaged.”

My smile faded after those words and again the thought of Lord Muto and Mr. Kaiba’s relationship made me uncomfortable.

So… Did the child know about that, too?! Did they all have any idea of the risks they were running? What kind of strange family was that?

“Of course, I know...” I whispered “and, from what I see, you are aware of it, too. Are you… happy?”

The young boy stared at me, as if I was talking to him in a unknown language.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked.

“Well… I mean… Oh, nothing particular, do not mind me, please. Forget it.”

Oh well, after all the little boy seemed very comfortable with the circumstance and if even a child could go beyond two men who had a relationship under the same roof, and the entire family was aware of it, I could have tried a little and succeeded, too...

I tried to overlook the embarrassment with a new, forced smile.

“Anyway, you know about his engagement, but… Seems that is not enough to discourage you, miss?” the boy said, turning around me along the dogs, who seemed to wait for a false step from my part to show their sharp teeth.

“Discourage me? Wait, there is a misunderstanding. I am not interested in Lord Muto _that_ way.”

Mokuba’s round face relaxed after my last words.

“Oh? Aren’t you? Well, this explains why Timaeus, Critias and Ermos did not bite you.”

“How dreadful. Have you taught them to bite your guests?” I asked, shocked, staring at him whom once again showed a naughty smirk.

“Not all guests. Just anyone approaching our family members, especially Yami and Yugi, with _weird_ intentions.”

“I-it must have been quite difficult to explain this to the dogs.” I observed, blushing, elevating my eyebrows at those words.

Mokuba shrugged, puffed up of pride.

“My brother taught it to them in a matter of weeks.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes. My big brother. Seto Kaiba.”

After having heard that name, the muscles of my face shook.

“Are you Mr. Kaiba's younger brother?” I cried.

“Exactly. I am Seto Kaiba’s younger brother.” he confirmed, puffing out his chest again and taking his hands on his hips, with a smirk.

  


  
He was a strange little boy. I did not know if I should have called him _impudent_ or just very _cute_ in his intentions to emulate every gesture and expression of his older brother.

But ... I was forgetting I had a task!

“Now I have to leave you, Mokuba. It was nice meet you all. Timaeus, Critias, Ermos.” I greeted, passing the three animals.

“You are not a governess, are you?” Mokuba murmured behind my shoulders, “Because I do not need one.”

“A governess? Of course not.” I flushed, “What makes you say that?”

“uhm. Well, never mind.” Mokuba remarked, “Anyway, at this time a lady should start to wear her afternoon suit.”

I was shocked. Did I really look like a governess, and, most important: did I really have to change my clothes several times a day?! For obvious reasons I had abandoned that silly habit the same day that aunt Agatha left my family's apartment in Whitechapel. After all, no one in that neighborhood would have worried about seeing me change clothes once a day instead of three or four...

“Indeed!” I stammered, blushing, “That is the reason why I must leave you. I… am going to my room to change.”

Before Mokuba could say something else, I went back, running to my room.

  
My face burned, and this time I did not find any pleasure from the heat that the fireplaces gave me.

I was stunned. I did not have that many change of clothes and my wardrobe was not really “fashionable” like my patient's and his family's one.

If a child had noticed such a detail, what would have been the reaction had the whole family seen me?

I had a job to do there. I could not waste my time to change my dress every two or three hours. At this rate I would not solve anything, too preoccupied with all those practices! And who knew how many others I was not aware of.

For the first time in my life, I found myself wishing to have aunt Agatha with me.

“I wonder where Lord Muto’s guest is. We were so busy doing the laundry that we haven’t had the opportunity to see her, yet.”

A female voice coming from inside my room interrupted my thoughts, so I stopped in front of the semi-open door, listening in silence.

“I heard about a rift between Mr. Kaiba and Lord Muto's guest, so, if Mr. Kaiba did not kick her out after what happened during breakfast, you will have plenty of time to see her, Mana.”

Mana?

“Thomas told me that Mr. Kaiba got up and stormed off after the offense.”

“Of course, he was really furious. I would not like to be in Miss Walsh's place at this time.”

I swallowed, suffocating a sob and hiding my face in my hands, after those words.

That mistake would persecute me forever, and at what speed the rumor had already spread among the servants! Now I really understood Lord Muto's concerns about his situation...

“Anyway, the biggest problem from now on is certainly not Mr. Kaiba, the more our master.”

“What do you mean, Tea?”

Tea?

“I mean, hosting someone here after what happened... I hope everything goes well and Lord Muto does not return to behave in that strange way again just in front of the guest.”

“Aye. I hope the same, too...”

After having heard those last words, I quickly opened the door, and a light breeze caressed my face.

The windows had been open, the curtains swirling lazily in the wind, lifting themselves gracefully. Two young maids in the middle of the room, at my appearance, dropped to the ground the sheets they were pulling, looking startled and petrified.

I could not let the opportunity slip away.

“I beg pardon. I could not help but hear your conversation.”

The young girls started, and their cheeks became red as fire, while the blond one came toward me with the white apron floating around her thin waist, taking my hands.

“Miss Walsh? I assure you we were not gossiping at all!”

“Mana!”

The second maid, with the most mature traits, light blue eyes and brown hair, caught her colleague and closed her mouth, forcing her to leave my hands.

“Mana, don’t get us into trouble!” she whispered, while the youngest maid tried to get free herself.

“Please, forgive us and do not tell anything to Lord Muto, Miss Walsh. I promise you this will not happen again!” she cried, making in front of me the deepest curtsy I have ever seen.

With my hands on my hips, I frowned at the both of them.

“It is not nice at all chatting that way to someone’s back. I wonder what should I do, now...” I said, taking a thoughtful air on and rubbing my chin, making the two maid tremble.

“Please, we are just worried about Lord Muto!”

Mana’s exclamation echoed through the room, followed by a tense silence that made her and her colleague blush.

“Well, then... In exchange for my silence you shall tell me what you were talking about shortly.” I declared with a grin.

The waitresses stepped back, pale.

“I see.” I said, approaching the door and lowering the handle, ready to leave the room “Lord Muto will be very disappointed when I...”

“Please, don’t!” Tea exclaimed, running near the door and closing it before I could go out “For Lord Muto's health, Miss Walsh, do not tell him anything!”

Obviously, it was not my intention to have anyone sacked, but keeping them on their toes could help a little.

“What is your name? Tea, If I am not wrong.” I asked to the older one, turning to her.

“Yes, Miss Walsh.” she nodded, making an elegant curtsy, “I will be your personal maid during your stay.” the girl informed me, “Whatever you need, do not be afraid to ask, but please, our master must not be made aware...”

“Then, tell me what is happening. It looks to me a good compromise.”

Under the two maid’s puzzled gaze, I walked toward my opened trunk, searching for a coordinate that could look like an evening gown, while the heads of Mana and Tea were leaning behind my shoulders to scrutinize inside, with curiosity.

I suppose they hoped to see delicate and fashionable silk frilly evening dresses in pastels colors, elegant woolen or velvet walking suits, blouses and lingerie in muslin and lace, kid gloves and little hats covered by ribbons and flakes from inside it, but from the mirror in front of me I soon noticed their disappointed faces when they saw nothing but dark-colored satin and velvet skirts, plain blouses and lingerie, an old _crinolette_ instead of a modern _bustle_ and some twin sets of waistcoats and jackets.

I blushed.

“I am often in travel, and those elegant suits and gowns are not very comfortable when I travel by train and carriage for long routes.” I tried to explain, perceiving their bewilderment, “Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, right, about Lord Muto.”

Tea and Mana looked down at their feet, with shame.

“Do not be afraid. I will not speak about this to anyone, my word. Please, answer to my question.” I said, making a nod to Mana to get close to take some blouses, “You know, this morning I had the impression that Lord Muto was a bit tired and absorbed in his thoughts, and you seem to know something more about his strange behavior.” I explained them, calmly, while I continued to rummage in the trunk and put my hats on the blond maid’s head. (I had never worn them; they were aunt Agatha's gifts, but I thought they would be useful in that occasion; for some obscure reason, the aristocrats went mad over hats. My aunt repeated it constantly, buying me three different type of headpiece each time she visited our house.)

Tea began to notice the struggle of her colleague in holding my headdresses and my blouses, and came up to help her before she suffocated under them.

“I am just wondering what he is concerned about.” I continued, showing myself quiet and relaxed, despite the growing curiosity, “He seemed very tired to me.”

After that affirmation, I looked up at the two girls. A gloom came over them.

“Yes, he is.” the blond one broke the silence; her voice suddenly faded.

“Mana!”

I felt a little guilty for having aroused the sense of discomfort in her and, letting my clothes on the bed, I reassured the girls with a kind smile.

“Mana, please, have a seat.”

“Thank you, Miss Walsh. Tell us, are you really so close to our young master?” the blond girl asked, raising her wet eyes to me, as if they could read the answer in mine’s.

I was too determined to get to the bottom of this case, to turn my gaze away from her. In the end, I was forced to lie for a good cause.

“I will do everything to help him.” I nodded, while Tea clenched nervous her colleague's hand.

“Maybe you could help him...”

“Mana, you shouldn’t!” the brunette murmured, nervously “We will get in trouble if...”

“Please, Tea! Lord Muto is important to me, to you, to all of us, and I do not want to see him acting strangely like he did some nights ago!” cried the girl.

Tea hesitated, twisting her apron with her white and trembling hands, then she surrendered.

“Take a breath and tell me everything” I said after few minutes of silence.

Soriano came out from under the bed, looking at us, then it jumped on Mana’s knee, meowing.

“Do you want me to talk about it, Mana?” Tea whispered.

Mana nodded, hugging the pet and picking up the handkerchief I was tending her.

“It happened a few nights ago, Miss Walsh. His Grace and the family members were already in their bedrooms for a few hours, and we were ending our tasks before retiring,” the brunette started, “Thomas and Christopher were finishing to close the doors and the windows, while Mana and I were moving toward the foreground to turn off the lights in the corridor. Suddenly, we met Lord Muto, half obscured in darkness, only lit by a candle. And he was there, staring at the ceilings, the walls... He seemed disoriented. However, we thought he had some last minute arrangements to give us, so we approached him.”

In the meantime, Mana had calmed down, and in spite of her eyes becoming red because of the tears, she looked up and spoke, clutching the handkerchief in her hands.

“When we were close to him, he turned and did not seem to recognize us.” she cried, “He seemed a different person, miss, but I can say with certainty that person was him! However, his eyes were... they were full of anger and melancholy at the same time,” she shivered “and then, he hit Tea. He struck her as if she was a threat to him, as if we had knives against him! He looked very scared. Tea got up and he hurried over to us. We were so frightened by him, Lord Muto pushed us away… Without realizing it, we got to the stairs.”

  


  
“I managed to hold back to the handrail before slipping down, but Mana fell down.” Tea intervened, looking the bandage that the young colleague wore wrapped around her wrist.

“Fortunately, it is only a sprain, and my ankle is almost healed.”

I nodded, relieved.

“Then what happened? What did he do?”

“He stood for a moment on the stairs, staring at us, but Christopher and Thomas came in, alerted by our screams and Lord Muto ran away”.

After Mana concluded, we were in silence for several moments.

“Tea, Mana, did you tell someone else about this?” I asked, looking at them.

“When His Grace demanded explanations from us, we told him that when we saw Lord Muto in the darkened corridor, we got scared and…” recalled the blond maid.

“You should understand that it is a strange fact to hear, Miss Walsh.” Tea said “Everyone knows our master, and he is not the kind of person who has such outbursts. Plus, we were afraid of losing our job. We lied, but Lord Muto realized that something had happened. He tried to ask us more questions, but we did not want to bother him and take risks.”

“After that night, we tried to forget everything. As if nothing had happened. We began to think that he was in the grip of a nightmare.”

“Like a sleepwalker?” I whispered.

The maids looked at each other: "No, miss. He was awake.I am sure of it."

“Did something happen after this occurrence, Tea?”

“Yes. The following evening Mr. Roland met him. Lord Muto was in front of the door of His Grace’s studio” replied the brunette “When he approached to ask him if he needed anything, he said something in an unknown language. Mr. Roland said that it was neither German nor French or Swedish, that’s for sure. You know, Mr. Roland knows several languages.”

“After that, Lord Muto went away, leaving the butler astonished. Even on this occasion, we have not talked to anyone…”

“I see. Is there anything else I should know of?” I asked.

Tea and Mana showed themselves even more uncomfortable in front of my gaze.

“Well, something happened between Lord Muto and Mr. Kaiba” Tea pointed.

“We were not present,” Mana added “and obviously Mr. Kaiba has never told anything to servants. Our master was really scared of himself at that point. We can feel it. We would like to do something to give him some comfort; even if the family do not show it, they all are very nervous and they do not know what to do about. If this rumor were to spread, it would create many problems for our masters.”

“Yes, I am afraid you are right.” I said, in agreement.

I was also told by the direct concerned: voices and rumors were ready to rise from every corner of the city; true or false rumors, it did not seem to matter. Especially for enemies who knew how to take advantage of them.

It was late, and the two maids seemed too shaken to say anything else, so I decided to leave them be, thanking them infinitely for the trust they gave me and promising not to report to anyone our _chat_.

“Oh, one last thing.” I said, before the girls left the room, “Are you sure Lord Muto's eyes were open?” I asked them.

Tea stared at Mana strangely; thinking thoughtfully, finally the first one answered.

“Yes, Miss Walsh. They were open and red like rubies. They were scary.”

  
Lord Muto’s eyes had been open and showed anger, sadness and fear.

“No way.” I sighed.

At that point I had to discard the hypothesis that someone had hypnotized him. But if it was neither sleepwalking nor hypnosis, then what could that be?

“I wonder what Braham would say if he was here...” I mumbled, thoughtfully, looking at the Transilvanic regions on the globe in the library “Ruby eyes, uh? Could Lord Muto be one of those strange creature or a...?” I shivered, “Good God, no! It is unlikely.”

“You seem troubled, Miss Walsh.”

“AAAAH! Lord Muto!” I exclaimed, wincing and clutching the huge globe before it rolled to the ground floor “I was assorted and I did not hear you coming in.”

“My apologies.” said my patient, leaning on the little Persian divan, “I heard a voice coming from here...” he explained.

“I see. Anyway, I should let you know about my chat with your maids.” I said.

“Oh? Did you already get information?” he asked, surprised, “Then, tell me everything, Miss Walsh.”

So I told to my patient everything.

Judging by the tension and the sorrow that slowly made his way to his face, including the attempt, on his part, to revive those moments that were still wrapped in the thickest darkness.

“How can it be? I do not know what to say, Miss Walsh. As I imagined, I have terrorized them to death.” he sobbed, “I wonder why I am still unable to remember that.”

“Mana and Tea were terrified, but they were also very worried about you, my lord.” I added, taking seat beside him on the divan, “I think that after those events they need to vent themselves with someone.” I explained, “You were right to turn to me. Do not be afraid. We will be able to solve the case, I swear. Please, trust me.”

He looked up, surprised, and on his lips appeared a kind smile that melted my heart.

“I trust you, Miss Wa...”

“Yami Henry Muto. Debouched and indecorous descendant of my own blood!” roared the raspy voice of an elderly man, crossing the library and scaring me to death.

“Grandfather,” My patient said, turning his head back, “this is horrid of you. What were you doing out there? Spying on us?"

The old man, fairly low, chubby, with thick gray hair, clenched his lips and turned his amethyst gaze to us, with disapproval.

He must have come back home recently because he was still wearing his heavy fur, top hat and gloves and he was nervously shaking his walking cane between the stubby fingers.

“Spying, you said? Ah! I have all the reasons to do it! What are you doing alone in the library with...?” He whirled, angrily.

“My word, grandfather,” sighed the latter, shrugging his head and elevating his black eyebrows, “you have misunderstood the situation, I fear. She is the dear friend that has come this morning from outside the city. I told you about her yesterday, remember?”

“What? our guest, you said?”

“Miss Walsh, it is my honor to introduce you Your Grace the 16th Earl of Hereford.” he said, turning to me still squatting on the floor, sunk in the gray skirt and still prey of the most varied and embarrassing thoughts.

I really hoped that finding us alone, seated next to each other in the library to whisper on the case, had not make him suspicious.

If Mr. Kaiba knew about this, he would certainly take the opportunity to unleash Timaeus, Ermos and Critias not only upon Mr Wheeler, me as well.

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.” I said with a deep curtsy.

“Oh, yes, that dear friend of you. Now I remember. My apologies. Well, I suppose if that was not true, at this time, Timaeus, Critias and Ermos would be making a great racket.” the Earl laughed, “Miss Walsh, it is a pleasure. You will excuse me for my misunderstanding. Let me welcome you to our humble abode.” the old man said, grasping abruptly my hand and kissing it, “Tell me, my dear, are you married?”

“I beg pardon?!” I asked, astounded.

Lord Muto raised his violet eyes to the ceiling.

“Grandfather, how could you?” he said, gently pushing his grandfather out of the library, under my incredulous eyes, “I beg you. Go.”

“My word, nephew! What chap of manners are these? I am an old man…!” he grumbled.

“Then, it is time for Your Grace to rest a little before the dinner is announced.” and without giving the grandfather time to replicate, Lord Muto closed the sliding doors behind him and stood there.

“My apologies, Miss Walsh” he said, embarrassed, while I saw a slight shade of cherry red painting his pale cheeks, “As I told you, you will never get bored here.”

  
**CONTINUE. (Next chapter up Wednesday December 5th)**

 


	4. The Fifth Guest (PART I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to say many things in this space, but when I prepare myself to write, everything disappears. So, I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, since till the end of January 2019 I will not upload new chapters. Plus, I would like to inform you all that if, for **some reason** , those who follow me on Tumblr should no longer find my blog *just in case*, you can catch me on Twitter (<https://twitter.com/amerutan>) as well, and find there my drawings, my wip and the fanfictions updates. You can’t go wrong. The username is always Amerutan.  
> Wish you all nice day! Enjoy the reading!
> 
>  
> 
> -The characters in this story belong to Kazuki Takahashi.  
> -During the reading you will find some numbers related to the footnotes at the end of the chapter, in order to explain customs and traditions, way of saying and more about this peculiar era.  
> -Please, mind that the story is set in the second half of the 19th century: references of psychological, neurological and biological nature are relevant to that historical period; the way of acting and thinking of the characters, customs, and ideals of the Victorian era do not necessarily reflect mine.  
> -If you have any advice of opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!

 

 

** -Chapter 4 (Part I): The Fifth Guest- **

 

After a quick and light afternoon tea and thanks to the pleasant chat with which I, Mr. Crawford and my patient entertained ourselves, time passed so fast that, when we noticed, the whole capital had already been wrapped in a dense darkness.

They wanted to know everything about my life and my work in Whitechapel, and I eagerly tried to satisfy their curiosity, but when Mokuba entered the salon with his dogs, Mr. Crawford was very quick and changed the subject, eulogizing his friend’s talent as pianist, so Lord Muto delighted us with some Nocturnes.

“I had never heard anyone play the piano so well.” I had to admit, enchanted by those pale and slender hands that caressed the keys.

“I gladly accept your compliments, Miss Walsh, but till you hear my brother playing Chopin, you can never say you have heard a good performance. You know, I learned by duty, he by passion.”

The butler reached us in the room.

“What news, Roland?” asked my patient, lifting one of the envelopes that the man were offering him on the silver tray.

“From Gräfin von Schroeder, my lord.”

“Bad news, my fellow?”

“On the contrary, Pegasus. They are invitations.” Lord Muto answered, reading the first few lines, “ _’Gräfin von Schroeder’s compliments to Your Grace the Earl of Hereford and his family, requesting the honor and the pleasure of their company at the New Year’s Eve Ball on the night of December 31th, at 10 ‘o'clock._ ’ There are invitation for you and Miss Walsh, too.” he added, passing us two sealed envelopes.

“Oh? Does von Schroeder know we are here? Nothing gets past our Graf.” the American commented, “Well, why not? It's been a long time since I last entertained the London high society with my slang.” he said.

“It will be a dancing night among close friends; I do not think you will have to worry about your accent, Pegasus.” my patient said.

“Well, my dear fellow, prevention is better than a cure. I am just trying avoid being the cause of old ladies fainting, that is all.”

“Do not blame yourself for the fainting of Lady Trollope. It was the smell coming from the stables during the Royal Ascott that caused it. You seem to take delight in forgetting it.”

“Of course I do.” Mr. Crawford giggled, turning his gaze to me and lowering his voice, “Honestly, my compatriots find my version of the story so entertaining that I do not have the courage to reveal them the truth.”

Smiling amused at that little confession, I opened my envelope; my hands trembled in front of its elegant and lavish content.

My name, written in a pitch black ink, stood out among the golden-printed characters of the invitation. A strong smell of roses reached my nose, making me sneeze.

“’Gräfin...”

“A countess from Germany, my dear.” the American explained to me, “The mother of the current count. The family has a resounding title exactly as Lord Muto’s, in their country, but here they are mostly known as “von Schroeders”. I seem to remember they enjoy jurisdiction over a considerable territory in their country. Baar, if I am not wrong.”

“ _Klettgau_.” my patient corrected him, while his amethyst eyes were still on the many sheets of paper he received, “Von Schroeders were supporters of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha lineage, Miss Walsh, and moved to London to serve Prince Albert after his marriage with Queen Victoria. It is a pity that Siegfried and his family will have to return to Germany, after the end of the year.” he told, raising his eyes to us, “He has been a very kind friend at a time when I had none.”

 

  


 

  
“My brother says that von Schroeder’s events are boring and full of old fossils and frilly mummies.” said Mokuba, who was still playing with Critias and Ermos near the fireplace.

“I do not find it hard to believe, Mokuba, but I fear till Mr. Kaiba will not take the throne and change the whole system, he shall have to adapt.” Lord Muto smirked, “However, Yugi and you do not have to worry about the New Year’s Eve Ball. Children are not allowed there.”

“My youth saved me.” whispered Mr. Kaiba’s little brother.

I smiled, turning my gaze on something slipped out of my opened envelope.

“Oh, what is this?” I asked, lifting up a small butterfly-shaped card, with a little attached pencil, “ _March, Quadrille, Galop_ … Is this a-?”

“ _A programme du bal_.” Mr. Crawford observed, “You can use it to record the names of the gentlemen with whom you intend to dance during the ball.”

I looked at Lord Muto, turning pale.

“My lord, I beg pardon, but I do not think I am prepared enough to take part in...”

The door of the entrance opened, interrupting our conversation; Mr. Kaiba had returned home.

The Great Danes raised their heads from the carpet and wagging their tails, as Mokuba running to his brother.

“We shall have another skeptic, here, very soon.” the American announced in a whisper, pouring out a last glass of brandy.

“Good evening, big brother!” the child exclaimed, receiving a quick and gentle caress on his head from the brother, “Guess what just came.”

Silently and slowly, as if sensing that whatever was waiting for him in the adjoining room would have been detrimental, Mr. Kaiba took off his black gloves, put them inside the top hat and left it to the butler, then entered the living room where the young lord welcomed him, raising the envelope he had just received.

The business man stared at it for a moment and turned his gaze, grumbling as if he had feared that day for a long time.

“You already know my answer.” he said, in a tone that would not have accepted rebuke.

Lord Muto raised his eyes to the ceiling; he reached the man, gently taking him aside in the farthest corner of the room.

“I am sorry, Mr. Kaiba.” we heard him address the business man, in a calm and contained voice “I already declined his request to meet him at the White's(1) in the past three weeks, and he wrote me six pages of good reasons for which we cannot refuse his invitation.”

“And you shall spend much less time and bad-smelling paper than him, just writing my name on a piece of sheet and send it to his mansion.” Mr. Kaiba coldly whispered “He shall understand.”

“You are a person, Mr. Kaiba, not a reason. And even if you were a reason, you should know you will never be enough a reason to Siegfried. If it was a boring event like any other, I could even think of giving up, but Siegfried is going to leave London soon and...”

“AND no news has ever sounded happier to my ears. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to change for dinner.”

A current of air reached us; Mr. Crawford and I glanced over our shoulders, seeing Mr. Kaiba crossing the room and leave, followed by Lord Muto.

“His mother, the countess, has been so kind to send invitations to all the family and guests. Nobody has been excluded. It would be quite rude of you not to show up with us. An affront. And might I remind you that our kind and elegant neighbor is one of my closest friends? Like it or not.”

“Kind and what? That church bell(2)?!” Mr. Kaiba cried, stopping halfway up the stairs “Are we talking about the same person?”

“Do you think Mr. Kaiba will capitulate, soon or later, Mr. Crawford?” I asked, while the Earl of Hereford and Lord Yugi reached us, elegantly dressed in their black evening suits.

The American shrugged, holding out his right arm and leading me to the dining room.

“Who knows, my dear. But if there is anyone who can change Kaiba-boy’s mind, that person is our friend.”

I had my doubts about it. Mr. Kaiba did not seem inclined to compromise.

“This is my last word, Yami. You will not force me even the last night of the year to be surrounded by a gobermouch(3) and his court of frilly mummies and old fossils.”

“I told you.” Mokuba giggled, looking at his brother vanish up to the first floor.

“I shall pretend I have never heard.” my patient’s grandfather said, frowning.

 

  
After the business man had changed in suit and joined us in the dining room, the meal was finally served.

The Earl of Hereford intervened in the quarrel between the two partners, addressing his grandson, while the valets served us hot punch, a delicious stuffed turkey roast and cold rolls with creamed butter.

“Did Miss Walsh receive an invitation, too?” he asked, as Mr. Kaiba’s blue eyes narrowed under his fringe.

“Of course she has.” Lord Muto nodded.

“Remarkable. The way von Schroeder became aware of her presence in such a short time. Miss Walsh has just arrived, after all.”

“It would be a perfect opportunity, my dear lord, to show our graceful guest the glittering world of the London high society.” Mr. Crawford merrily intervened.

Mr. Kaiba and I risked to choke ourselves with the hot punch.

“Indeed, Pegasus.” agreed my patient, cutting his roast.

“My lord, with all due respect,” I tried to explain, in a thread of voice “I do not think this is a good idea...”

“Miss Walsh, you already made your debut in society, haven’t you?” Lord Yugi asked, across the table “Tell us, how was it?”

“My debut?”

My patient turned his gaze on me.

“Ooh, my debut! Well, it was not exciting at all. It took place in... in Bath, during a terrible rainy evening. The weather was not kind to us debutants that night. Because of it, many guests could not take part in it.” I lied “It was nothing comparable to a debut ball in London.”

“I see. What a pity.” my patient’s brother said “I am sure on this occasion you will have the opportunity to spend a delightful night. You should just find a chaperone.”

“Now that you mention it,” His Grace pointed, throwing a quick gaze to his nephew, “why is Miss Walsh not escorted? Did you two come here alone? In the same carriage?”

“Ergh...”

“Yami.” Mr. Kaiba hissed between his lips, interrupting the conversation, “Do you really intend to bring Miss Walsh in that place?” he pointed out in his deep voice.

His words resoundening as something unpleasant and rude to me, but that time I was grateful to him for having removed the attention of the family from me and my inexistent chaperone.

“The way you have just said that was horrid, Mr. Kaiba.”

“No, Yami. What you intend to do is horrid. Do you really intend to take part in that ball? With Miss Walsh unaccompanied?”

I glanced at my patient, while the latter returned his partner’s gaze after a moment of silence, secretly seeming to agree with him. After all, Lord Muto had promised himself to do everything to avoid raising rumors about my presence as his guest.

“Moreover.” Mr. Kaiba added, lacing his fingers under his chin, “Might I also remind to Your Grace that his nephew’s condition has not been _optimal_ , recently?”

“Kaiba.”

“Although this is not the right context to talk about this,” His Grace intervened “I must agree with Mr. Kaiba about it, Yami.”

“I beg you to think of it, before refusing that invitation, grandfather.” Lord Muto said, keeping an admirable calm, “It has been a long time since I have not shown myself in public celebrations. I am well aware that you are doing all this for my own good, but keep on to deny our presence to these events could be suspect and raise rumors, anyway.”

The entire family remained silent and thoughtful.

Lord Muto was not wrong; it must have been very difficult for him to be forced to remain indoors in his abode most of the time. This certainly would not have helped his health, nor would have been solved his problem; but, despite this, I could not help but agreeing with Mr. Kaiba.

It was necessary to consider that my patient’s problem was not something common - he first had previously told me about aggression from his part, against his loved ones - and exposing himself without proper precautions could really put at risk family and friends.

“My, my… There is still a plenty of time to think of it.” Mr. Crawford promptly intervened “I am sure we shall manage to find a solution that puts everyone in agreement. Your Grace?”

“Hm, I promise to think about it.” the old man nodded.

After those words, dinner continued between exchanges of pleasantries and delicious food, then we retired in the salon to spend some time in chatters.

“I was forgetting, Roland: this morning, just before lunch, I heard something brutally overthrown in the portico.” remembered Lord Muto, “What was that?”

“I really don’t know, my lord” the man admitted, thoughtful “It is likely that the supplier have spilled a sack of potatoes or...”

“A supplier entered the front door of our house?” grunted His Grace, “What's the world coming to? Roland, how could you allow this? There is the service door for suppliers and servants!”

“Miss Walsh, are you alright? You look flushed.” Lord Yugi whispered, noticing my cheeks burning.

“I am fine, my lord…” I coughed, embarrassed at the memory of what happened in the portico that morning.

“Tell us, Kaiba-boy, how was your day at the bank?”

“One of the worst days in my life, Pegasus. I am surrounded by saddle-goose(4) of all kinds and there seems to be no cure for it.” Mr. Kaiba murmured, sipping his soda and reaching us on the divans along with his business partner.

“I am sure Mr. Taylor and his younger son shall be able to fulfill efficiently their duties at the bank during your absence, Kaiba-boy.”

“The Taylors are trusted persons and are not who I am worried about, but when I return to occupy the director desk -and this shall happen very soon-I shall make sure that those turnocoats of my father’s collaborators have no way of finding another job in this city except as a chimney-sweep.”

I turned my ears away from that conversation, to address my attention to His Grace and his nephews.

“... since I had to stay at home, I took a few hours to answering correspondence.” the young lord was saying, throwing himself on the divan next to his brother.

The old Earl grunted.

“I noticed. The tray in the atrium was overwhelmed this morning. It took me  a while to find the communication I was waiting from Brecon in that pile of smelling paper. This is scandalous. Are the families of these young girls aware of the fact that their daughters are pushing themselves up to write to a man? I should ask them at the next Wednesday Ball, when their mothers will present them as timid and well-mannered creatures...”

“Do not say that, grandfather. I do not think there is anything wrong in those young girls. They simply know what they want, and I find all this admirable. After all, times are really changing as Mr. Kaiba always says.” replied my patient, throwing a smirk to the man seated across from him.

“Ah! For Heaven’s sake, nephew, let’s not say nonsense.”

I sipped my drink, silently agreeing with my patient words, could not help but think His Grace had spoken a little out of envy to his nephew.

Moreover, my patient was certainly not in a rosy situation as those ladies, since he lived under the same roof with his (male) companion...

I looked at Mr. Kaiba; he did not seem particularly worried about frivolities like love letters and admirers. From what I could see, it was all too clear from the gazes that the two men launched each other that the argument for both was far from being something serious to discuss.

“Brave or not, may I know why do you insist on answering them?”

“It is a matter of good education and manners, grandfather. Anyway, I asked them not to take any more risks, kindly discouraging their attentions.” the young lord replied.

“I really hope you did. In those letters there is enough compromising material to make their ancestors blush.” the grandfather muttered, turning his gaze on me “Very well. Then, tell us something about you, Miss Walsh. I suppose you will delight us with your presence till after the Christmas celebrations, and we are very curious about you.”

Lord Yugi nodded, interested: “My brother told us that you spend half of the year traveling through Europe.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” I confirmed, happy in being able to finally answer with all sincerity, “My father loved traveling around the world, and he transmitted this passion to me.”

Mr. Kaiba’s eyes, in the meanwhile, were fixed on me.

When I noticed, I felt as if pierced by a thousand knives, so from time to time I began to return his looks and that of Lord Muto, looking for the latter’s support.

The entire family showed curiosity and interest in what I was telling, while I tried, as agreed with my patient, to stick to the description of a profile that he had previously made of me to his loved ones before my arrival, but I was not sure that Mr. Kaiba was listening to what I had to tell.

Closed in himself, he seemed to observe the scene from a total different place, completely isolated and far from the reactions and the interest of the family members. It was hard to explain; at that moment I was sure he was trying to see beyond my words, suspicious.

“Remarkable. Remarkable, Miss Walsh.” the Earl of Hereford nodded, bending his lips in a smirk which was anything than reassuring, “And… I seem to remember that you were looking for an engagement.”

“Grandfather!” the whole family reproached him, outraged, as I started on my chair.

“Does she not? My memory must have fooled me.”

“Do not worry about it, Miss Walsh. He always asks it to all the young ladies he meets.”

“What are you whispering at, nephew?”

“Hm, n-nothing, grandfather…” Lord Yugi smiled nervously.

“Lord Yugi, why don’t you play something on the piano for us?” Mr. Crawford intervened, feeling my nervousness and the tension rise “You know, Lord Muto told us about your remarkable talent.”

“Really?” the young boy exclaimed, blushing “My brother always exaggerates. I am not that good, to be honest.”

“Nice idea.” Mr. Kaiba said “Perhaps, Miss Walsh will stop staring at Lord Muto and me like freaks if we will distract her with music or generic conversations about embroidery, sewing or something else.”

The entire family was stunned by those sharp words; the glass of wine that His Grace held between his fingers cracked.

I bit my lips, looking down, full of shame.

“Kaiba.” my patient intervened “Enough.”        

“Good in Heaven, Yami.” the Earl cried “Is Miss Walsh aware of your...?”

“Of course, Your Grace. I see no reason why she shouldn’t know. Mr. Kaiba and I are not criminals, after all.”

“Lord Muto,” I said, looking at them all and trying to keep my cool “Mr. Kaiba has every reason to address me this way. This morning I did not do better, after all...”

“Miss Walsh,” Lord Yugi timidly intervened “clearly this morning it was not your intention to offend him.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Walsh. I am sure there will be plenty of time, tomorrow, to clarify with Mr. Kaiba. But now it is quite late. I think it is time to retire ourselves.” Your Grace interrupted us, as the clock of the salon sounded eleven.

Needless to say that we all understood the true reason behind those words. The conversation had taken a turn that had upset the man, so we silently got up from the divans and retired to our rooms.

Walking up the stairs, I saw with the corner of the eye His Grace talking to his nephew and holding him back in the salon.

I could not stay too long to observe the scene, since Mr. Kaiba, staring at the room thoughtfully, was going up the stairs just behind me.

I took leave and I separated from Mr. Crawford and Lord Yugi, and I walked briskly to my room.

Tea was already there, when i entered, and she was cuddling Soriano on the carpet.

“Good evening, Miss Walsh. Was the dinner to your liking?” she kindly asked, getting up.

“The dinner… Oh, yes, of course it was.”

While the maid helped me get rid of my crinolette and corset, my thoughts returned to Mr. Kaiba.

I could not understand what kind of person he was, nor what kind of thoughts he carried behind that deep blue gaze. He was always so serious and severe towards anyone, his ways of doing and expressing himself, outspoken, were really at the limit of acceptability, and always put everyone in difficulty and awe, His Grace and his nephews first.

I wondered for what reason, if Mr. Kaiba’s presence as a guest of that abode was so ill-tolerated, the Earl of Hereford did not take serious measures in this regard.

From what I had noticed, he did not seem particularly favorable to the nephew's relationship, so it was really difficult for me to believe that despite this, the feelings that my patient and that oriental man felt towards each other were enough to convince the whole family to support that difficult situation...

What was so special about that man that pushed Lord Muto to love him, and to stand against the whole family, risking to throw it into scandal?

In the meantime, Tea finished combing and ringing my hair with rags.

“I will come to wake you up at eight in the morning. The breakfast for the guests shall be served in the dining room at ten o’clock. Good night, Miss Walsh.” she greeted me, caressing the cat and leaving the room after a quick curtsey.

“Good night, Tea.”

Once finally in my nightgown, bad thoughts finally left me, and I threw myself between the soft, scented blankets, falling asleep.

 

  
“My word, nephew. Find a solution to contain the total lack of Kaiba's etiquette. He seems to have no filters.”

Simon B. C. Muto, 16th Earl of Hereford, stood near the window, looking at the darkness outside, with a serious look; after those words, his young nephew did not need any more signals to understand what he was getting at.

“This is not a joke. Was it really necessary to reveal to our guest everything? I wonder why you didn’t tell them the same things that half London is aware of. Tell them that Mr. Kaiba is here because we have temporarily entrusted him in the administration of our budgets and assets. After all, it is not a lie, although I would rather stay out of this murky affair.”

“Murky, grandfather? Appointing Mr. Kaiba the role of administrator of our family’s assets will soon remove the negative image that people have made after the case that involved the bank. I cannot see anything murky in all this.”

“I do not doubt that your intentions towards Mr. Kaiba were the noblest, but try not to consider me an old naive. I know what is behind this. I can perfectly see what there is in your eyes and the reason that led you to take these measures, Yami. The awareness of this is hurting me, because you involved the whole family.”

“I just asked you for support; something that every family should provide for its loved ones.”

“Hm. Anyway, not everyone outside there seems happy about it,” the Earl remarked “and those people are the ones that worry me the most. This is the reason why I wanted you to keep the matter confidential even with our guests.”

“I assure you Miss Walsh is a trusted person, grandfather; you do not have to worry about her.”

“Trusted or not, I do not accept that your…. relationship, if so it can be defined, becomes a topic of conversation in this respectable abode. You know what my thoughts about this situation are. Rather, are there any news from the chief of Scotland Yard?”

Lord Muto nodded, pouring himself a glass of sherry.

“The investigations are almost done. Mr. Kaiba and Mokuba will regain possession of their stepfather’s properties and assets, as his only heirs. They will be able to return to occupy their abode immediately after the end of the year.”

“Fine. And what will you two do? Will you take Mokuba and move, pretending to live like a happy little family under the eyes of the whole society?”

  
  


 

  
The boy tilted his glass of sherry, and the flames of the nearby fireplace brought out its coppery reflections.

“Of course not, do not talk about it this way… We want to keep things going between us, you know.” he said, while an imperceptible smile pursed his lips “Maybe one day we will even come to agree on something.”

The Earl took seat in front of him, sighing and putting his hand to his temple.

“What kind of talk. I knew that when you were born you would be your father's son in every respect.”

“I have never asked for your approval.” the young lord said “I am just asking you all to respect my choices.”

“Of course I could not deny you my love and my care. I raised you and Yugi like sons. I promised myself that I would not judge or blame you, Yami. I told myself that you would grow up, that you would make your mistakes like every young boy of your age.  But it is hard when the society’s eyes are constantly on you, and they risk throwing the whole family into scandal. I thought that if I had accepted your _fancy_ , sooner or later you would have realized your mistakes and would have gone to meet your duties, like all the members of our family before you. But as I can see, you have definitely lost yourself.” the Earl said “You know what the solution is: rethink to your engagement with Lady Rebecca. Maybe there is a way to fix all that. After all, the Duke, his grandfather, is a dear friend of mine since the time we traveled in Europe as students.” the old man muttered, “You are the firstborn, my boy, do not forget it. You should think about assuring our family a worthy lineage.”

“My way of being is not a passing fancy, grandfather, and I am not going to marry Lady Rebecca and force her to live with me in lies.”

“A marriage is firstly a contract. Do not forget it.” the old man emphasized “We do not live inside a novel. Love has never been required as solid foundation of a relationship. Your father too, at your age, has clashed against this reality. And he went along with it.”

“My father loved my mother dearly, and for her and the family he made many sacrifices, but you know better than me that he has never been able to love her completely. I know why he accepted the role of diplomat for the Royal House. To spend less time in this country. Because here he felt considered a criminal.”

“Are you aware that if you were to be exposed, Mr. Kaiba would be the one to pay more? You are a noble. There is always a way out for us. But for a bourgeois like him, punishment is prison(5).” the Earl reminded “Think of it, Yami. I do not know how much my heart will hold up. Soon you shall have to take care of this family in my place. Think of it.”

After those words, grandfather and nephew remained in silence.

The crackling of the last embers ceased and the flame in the fireplace went out.

The young lord got up from the sofa and bowed to the man, then he silently left the room.

 

  
The soft and persistent ticking of the pendulum clock, along with the meowing of the cat, interrupted my sleep.

Yawning and stretching, I got up between the sheets to read the time on the dial, and when my eyes were accustomed to the darkness, I could distinguish the golden hands pointing the three in the morning.

“Wait… What? Stop, Soriano! Put those claws away or we will have to pay for the damages.” I whispered, looking at the cat scratching the door, “Do not tell me you have to do your business right now.” I asked, raising it from the ground.

Probably it had to, since the poor creature had been locked up there all day in the room, without the chance to get out.

It returned my gaze with his big, yellow eyes, then he jumped to the floor, resumed hitting his head against the wooden door.

Perhaps there was someone outside the room. Probably the butler or the valets were returning to their apartments.

“Very well. I will ask someone to take you out for a while.” I suggested, moving the pet away from the threshold, but as soon as I opened the door and looked around the area, Soriano hurtled immediately under the bed, hissing.

“Good God, what is the matter with you?” I asked, as diving my head in the pitch black corridor “Do not tell me you are scared of the dark. I found you in a graveyard at night, Soriano, remember?”.

There was nothing visible, except the narrow carpet that ran down the floor, plunging into darkness and silence. I was about to close the door and go back to sleep, when something behind me caught my eye: a dim light danced in the distance before vanishing.

“Is anyone there?” I whispered, “Timaeus, Critias...?”.

The ambiguous light showed again.

“What is that thing?”

After having turned on a candle, I walked barefoot into the corridor, looking for that reflection.

“Mokuba? Is that you?”

From time to time I turned to find comfort in the partially open door of my room, but shortly thereafter, with horror, I discovered that I had lost sight of it, swallowed by the vortex of darkness.

The flame danced in front of my eyes, timidly illuminating oil portraits of men and women, hanging on the walls returned my looks, without expression, followed by the corner of the stairwell that led to the atrium.

The small light appeared and vanished once again; I took the step to reach it, leaning firmly on the handrail, and when I stopped on the carpet of the atrium, something wrapped in a dark corner caught my attention.

I thought it was a joke played by poor lighting to my eyes...

My heart began to hammer my chest, my breath became labored.

It was like seeing a liquid shadow made of ink acquire three-dimensionality, and a flat face only made of blackness, bring out the characteristic features of a face.

Two big ruby eyes opened, looking at me.

“Good God!”

I stepped back, bumping abruptly into a chair, trying not to fall to the ground, to prevent the light of the candle from extinguishing.

The shadow remained silent and motionless for a few moments in the corner, just turning his head towards me.

He whispered something, but I could not grasp any familiar word.

“A thief!” I shouted, terrorized, but my voice died in my throat.

The candle fell to the ground, sputtering out.

I desperately groped round for the stairs and, reached the corridor, hoping to find the open door of my room in that sea of dense and tangible darkness or, even better, a friendly figure who would help me.

The shadow, in the meantime, moved behind me as light as a ghost, walking through the staircase.

“Who are you? Who is there?” I cried, shakily, still feeling its presence behind my shoulders.

I did not run for long, but the tension made my breath short. The muscles of my legs ached, and the tears prevented from seeing ahead of me.

I stumbled on the carpet.

The shape reached me the same moment I was finally able to find the door I was looking for and I immediately opened it.

The pale light of the moon, coming from the windows, illuminated my pursuer, revealing his traits, his half-naked slender body, the blond shocks of hair that framed his face, and the deep scarlet eyes fiercely fixed on me.

“Lord Muto?” I exclaimed in a broken voice, raising myself and stumbling against the wall “No, you are not him...! Who are you?” I kneeled down, trembling “What… What is happening to you? Can you understand me? Lord Muto, can you hear me?” I asked, afraid.

I stretched out my hands toward him, laid them on his naked shoulders and shaking him gently, as if to wake my patient from a nightmare, “If you are not him, where is he? Please…!” I cried.

After my words, he shook me off, grabbing my wrists and pulling me away with strength, raising his free arm to hit me.

Instinctively, I covered my face with my hands, frightened and defenseless, waiting for a second blow that never came.

“Soriano!”

The cat had dashed out of the room right at that moment and, jumping in front of my feet, it seemed to stop the violent gesture of my aggressor, hissing and breaking into an almost otherworldly meowing.

“What are these noises? Who screamed?”

“Miss Walsh, are you there?”

In the meantime, some doors in the distance opened, and the occupants came out from their rooms.

I raised my eyes, confused by what was happening and, before I saw my patient run away, I caught a glimpse of his ruby eyes full of terror.

“Wait! Lord Muto!” I exclaimed, moving a step forward, but he had already vanished.

That was the first meeting I had with the _Other lord_.

  
** CONTINUE. (Next chapter up Wednesday Jan. 31th) **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)White’s: founded by the Italian immigrant Francesco Bianco, is the oldest gentlemen's club in London, and is widely considered to be the most exclusive private club in the world. Clubs were enormously popular with upper-class London males in the nineteenth century, and resembling a stately mansion where gentlemen smoked, drank, ate, read -in libraries or news rooms-, played billiards, and socialized among their peers. Women were, of course, not admitted.  
> (2)Church Bell: a talkative woman.  
> (3)Gobermouch: an Irish word for a nosy, prying person, who likes interfere in other people’s business.  
> (4)Saddle-goose: a fool, an imbecile.  
> (5)Homosexuality during the Victorian Era (Some more information):  
> Only in 1861 the Parliament approved the law that removes the death penalty from homosexuals found in a flagrant of "sexual act against Nature" (Penalty which had been foreseen as early as 1533 by the "Buggery Act"). This decision certainly did not decriminalize the "crime", but at least made the punishment less drastic and fierce. Homosexuality _without penetration_ was somehow tolerated or at least diplomatically ignored, as long as the relationship was not ostentatious in public. There were in any case a large amount of men sent to prison for significant periods (from 2 to 10 years) for the crime of having consensual sex with each other, and a consistent number of suicides followed after the cruel sentences, and the humiliation of being called "inverted", individuals without virility, sick and perverse.


	5. The Fifth Guest (PART II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _-The characters in this story belong to Kazuki Takahashi._   
>  _-During the reading you will find some numbers related to the footnotes at the end of the chapter, in order to explain customs and traditions, way of saying and more about this peculiar era._   
>  _-Please, mind that the story is set in the second half of the 19th century: references of psychological, neurological and biological nature are relevant to that historical period; the way of acting and thinking of the characters, customs, and ideals of the Victorian era do not necessarily reflect mine._   
>  _-If you have any advice of opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!_

 

** -Chapter 5 (Part II): The Fifth Guest- **

 

Following that shocking episode, I was joined by Mr. Crawford and the Earl of Hereford.

Mr. Kaiba promptly set off in pursuit of his partner down the corridor and returned shortly informing all us that Lord Muto had disappeared from his bedroom.

“Disappeared?!”

The American helped me to stand up.

“What happened, Miss Walsh?” His Grace asked me.

“This is not time for explanations.”

“Kaiba-boy is right, Your Grace. We must find Lord Muto as soon as possible.”

“So be it." the old man nodded, "Miss Walsh, stay in your room and lock the door.”

“Please, let me help you! We shall have more chance to find him.”

So the man gave the order to the servants to turn the lights on in the house and, while the gentlemen were searching for my patient, I separated from them to go to Lord Muto's bedroom.

Unlike the corridor, that place was still immersed in darkness and it lightly perfumed in the familiar lotus scent that I remembered from the day my patient first came to my office in Whitechapel.

I took a few steps inside the room and gingerly looked around me; the drapery of the canopy bed was pulled down, sheets and clothes scattered on the floor and nestled amongst them, some jewels shone dimly in the candlelight from the corridor.

It was with horror that, passing behind the red velvet curtains, I discovered the semi open window. Looking down the small balcony, with a bad feeling, in fact, I immediately spotted some footprints on the snow-covered grass, leading from the house.

“Oh no! Mr. Roland!”

The butler, who was running frantically from one place to another, rushed into the room and stopped next to me.

“Did… Did you find him, Miss Walsh?”

“Mr. Roland, please, open the front doors!”

“The doors? A-as you wish, miss!”

Mr. Kaiba and Lord Yugi in the near corridor heard my request and reached me immediately down the stairs.

“Which way were the footprints headed?” the former asked.

“Towards the entrance boulevard, sir. ” I answered, dashing out with them onto the wet cobblestones.

Lord Yugi was pale as a ghost. “I wonder where could he have gone.” he cried.

“He must not have gone far, my lord."I reassured him as we walked along the driveway "After all, it is not been a long time since he-AAAAAH!”

Mr. Crawford reached me after having seen me slip and fall on the lawn.

“Miss Walsh, are you alright?”

“I am fine…” I cried back to him, shivering at the contact with the frozen ground.

I rose to my feet and I looked back, shocked to find the cause of my fall.

“I tripped on…!”

“Yami!” Mr. Kaiba shouted. He rushed over and shone light on his partner’s body with the oil lamp he was carrying.

“Good God!” I exclaimed, approaching him and bringing my ear closer to my patient's nose and mouth "He is still breathing."

After the businessman had verified his partner's pulse, he lifted Lord Muto’s pale, limp body from the snow.

“Let’s get him inside immediately! Yugi, quick! Send someone to fetch the doctor!” His Grace ordered to the younger grandson.

Short of breath and wrapped in their nightgowns and shawls, Mana and Tea reached us from the library, shrieking at the sight of the body of their young master unconscious in Mr. Kaiba's arms.

“God in heaven! Is Lord Muto…?”

“Do not mention God yet and try to make yourself useful, rather.” the man coldly replied, as he carried his partner up the stairs, into the bedroom.

“All of you, stay in the living room.” the Earl ordered to the group “There is no need to have too many people around him at this time.”

Then he moved up the stairs, following Mr. Kaiba.

The two maids and the valets, in the meanwhile, stared at each other in confusion in the nearby hallway, uncertain about what to do next, so I took the opportunity to approach them.

“Miss Walsh, did you see?” the blond maid whispered “It happened again!”

“Do not worry, Mana. Lord Muto had not been out in the cold for too long. The doctor will be here soon, so let's just both keep our cool till then.” I reassured her “Moreover, make sure the fireplace is lit in Lord Muto’s bedroom, and prepare him something hot and not alcoholic to drink. Someone get towels and prepare a bathtub filled with warm water, because he will need a bath to warm him up.” I explained.

The two girls looked at me, puzzled, then nodded in acknowledgment and immediately ran out of the room together with Michael and Thomas.

I left them to their duties and I joined Mr. Crawford, Lord Yugi and Mokuba as well, who had been awakened by all the commotion.

From time to time, the voice of Mr. Kaiba, who was trying to wake up his partner, could be heard.

“Can you hear me? Wake up. Wake up, Yami!”

  
“Yami!”

  
A dream?

_“Wake up…!”_

  
_“Pharaoh!”_

_An echoing but familiar voice next him was calling someone, and it was getting closer and clearer._

_“Can you hear me? Can you hear me, pharaoh? Pharaoh!”_

_Lord Muto opened his eyes and saw his reflection in two familiar sapphire-blue irises deep as a winter sea. He also felt on his skin the firm grip of two large, warm hands that supported his body, strangely weak and unresponsive._

_A name surfaced from his lips; but, with surprise, it was not the name the noble had expected to pronounce._

_“Seth?”_

_What was happening?_

_Why did he know the name of that man?_

_Why was he so sad?_

_The young lord did not know how his heart could feel such transportation and affection for someone he had never met in his life._

_He raised his hand to brush away the tears rolling down the man's amber cheeks, wondering why he was suffering so much..._

_“Why are you… crying?”. He found himself coughing, and a strong pang of pain took his breath away._

_Why was it so hard for him to bring words to his lips?_

_The man spoke to him once more._

_“Atem, look at me! Just look at me.”_

_The noble nodded up at the other, but his focus turned to his hand as he noticed thick, red liquid oozing through his fingers as they cupped the man’s cheek._

_He looked down._

_The substance ran down his limbs drenching his chest, it trickled all down his body. It coated his lips._

_Blood? Was that his own blood?_

_Was he… hurt?_

_Lord Muto’s eyes widened._

_“N-no!” he cried, scared “Why am I…?! Why am…!”_

_“Pharaoh Atem! Just… Just hold on! Atem! I have called for the healers!”_

_“Seth, listen to me…! Please, listen…!_

  
_Set…!_

  
Seto!”

  
Lord Muto’s eyes shot open before he could let out an agonizing scream.

Short of breath and scared, he raised his hand, discovering it white as the snow. The blood had disappeared around him; only his fingers were cold, slightly red and tingling.

“Was… was it a dream?”

He looked at his side, and he found Mr. Kaiba gazing over him sporting his usual unperturbed expression, however the businessman could tell it barely masked his concern; his tense jaw and taut lips betrayed him.

They looked at each other for several moments, till Lord Muto realized the situation.

It happened. It happened again. He could read the tension in his partner’s eyes.

“Kaiba… ”

“It cannot go on like this, Yami. Don’t you agree?”

Stunned by those words, Lord Muto turned his eyes away from him, and a painful twinge invaded again his chest.

Michael came out of the adjoining room and, after a slight bow, informed them that a warm bathtub for the young master had been prepared.

Mr. Kaiba got up from the chair next to the bed and helped his partner to stand up.

“The doctor will be here shortly. Have a bath in the meanwhile. You are still cold.”

 

  
“Does he feel better now? Oh, thank, God!”

It was a great relief to all us to hear the doctor reassured the Earl about his grandson’s conditions.

“There is no need to worry. The warm bath helped to regulate his body temperature. Lord Muto is already recovering. Continue to give him hot drinks, and keep the fireplace always lit in his bedroom.”

When the man left the house, we climbed the stairs together, up to the bedrooms.

The Earl’s grumbling was not enough to prevent us from visiting his grandson.

“I am so glad you are fine, Yami.” Lord Yugi cried, relieved, entering the room first and holding his brother’s hand.

“How do you feel?” Mokuba asked him.

Slowly, Lord Muto’s cheeks were resuming their characteristic pink tinged porcelain hue.

“I am terribly sorry for making you worry. I feel better, now.”

Mr. Kaiba stood up, silently tense, and when my gaze and my patient’s met, I could not help but notice bitterness and discomfort hidden behind those amethyst irises.

I was almost certain the two had argued, since they both seemed uneasy about being in the same room...

“Lord Muto.” I turned to him “You have not drank your medicine yet.” I said, putting the cup in his hands and throwing him a wink.

The latter looked at the contents of the cup and bent his lips in a relieved smile.

“Oh, hot chocolate… This is the best medicine someone have ever been prescribed me.” he whispered, “I had better drink it before Mr. Kaiba does. You know, Miss Walsh, he does not show it, but he has a very sweet tooth.” he revealed, raising his voice.

The businessman elevated his eyebrows under his fringe, turning his back to us.

“Hm, now rest. We shall talk later.” he murmured to his fiancé.

His Grace gave a sigh of relief and caught our attention.

“Well? Did you hear what the doctor said? Let him rest.”

The whole family left the room, wishing a good night to the young lord. Only his brother, Lord Yugi, and the grandfather decided to stay at his side, in case of need. However, before to retire, he reached me and the American on the threshold

“Miss Walsh, Mr. Crawford, are you fine?”

“Of course, Your Grace. I am just a bit stunned.” I reassured him with a smile.

“Moreover, we hope Lord Muto will recover soon.” Mr. Crawford added.

“We all hope the same. Speaking of it, my grandson confessed to me that he had informed both of you of the latest… events.”

Mr. Crawford nodded.

“He told us about a strange inner disease from his part, and also about the aggressions.”

“Hm, I see…” the old man muttered, lacing his hands behind his back “I must confess that my grandson's desire to have you here seemed to me somewhat out of place, given the circumstances.” he explained “These are facts concerning our family. Not a burden to be poured out on friends and acquaintances. Do not misunderstand me, my dear. The fact is that I do not want you and the other guests to be involved in any unpleasant accident, like already happened.”

“Your Grace, what does the doctor say about Lord Muto’s problem?” I asked.

“The general practitioner you met a while ago believes it is a disturbance generated by stress and has advised us the name of a specialist, but at the moment he is out of the country and shall not return till the next month.”

"Oh, and there are no others specialists available, Your Grace?"

"We know a second one, but our family and this person are not on good terms. We do not want to run the risk of my grandson's health becomes a source of gossip. In the past, Yami has already been the cause and the victim of some scandals. What we want now is to keep him away from all this. Have you any idea of what would happen if the news of his state were to spread to the city?"

Mr. Crawford frowned.

"At worst, someone of your enemies could take advantage of it to question your position in Parliament, I suppose." he said "A superficial gossip about Lord Muto's mental state, for example, would suffice to affect a possible future admission of your grandson in the House of Lords."

"Precisely, Mr. Crawford. In that place sometimes sits persons who can be less scrupulous than criminals." the old man nodded, "Anyway, I must thank you all for the help you gave us. I have to admit your nerve, to-night, has been remarkable. Miss Walsh, the valet told me you gave them the advice for the warm bath.”

“My apologies, Your Grace. It was not my intention to give orders to your servitude…”

“It helped my grandson, Miss Walsh. I am glad you did.” he said “How did you know? Do you perhaps volunteer as a nurse somewhere?”

“Yes, I did.” I answered “And occasionally there were hypothermia cases among the many patients we followed.”

“I see.” the man nodded “Well, now I understand why my grandson felt confident to reveal his problem to you...”

Lord Yugi peeped out of his brother’s room.

“I apologise for the interruption.” he said “Grandfather, Yami would like to talk with you.”

The man sighed, turning his gaze on us.

“It was rude of me to hold you back. It is very late.”

“You do not have to apologise, Your Grace.” Mr. Crawford said “Please, if there is something we can do for your grandson, know that our friendship and our support are at your complete disposal.”

“In any circumstances it should show up.” I added.

“This is very kind of you.” Lord Yugi intervened, relieved to hear our words, “So, Miss Walsh, Mr. Crawford, you will stay, will you not?”

“Yugi!” His Grace winced. “Do not be inappropriate.”

I was grateful to Lord Yugi for his intervention.

As a guest, I could not have insisted and opposed the Earl’s decision to move us away from the house, but the awareness of having another member of the family who insisted that we remain, gave me relief, so I could not help but catched the opportunity immediately.

“Lord Yugi, “ I smiled, “if you and Your Grace insist…”

“Of course we do, am I right, grandfather? Our guests were so cool head and brave, to-night. I am sure their presence, like that of Mr. Kaiba, will give my brother great comfort.”

“Well, I hope so…” the Earl of Hereford said, resigned.

At that point, he seemed so tired and tried by events that he no longer had the strength to oppose. On the other hand he knew us as dear friends of his grandson, and he also seemed to agree with his younger grandson that our presence could help Lord Muto feel less lonely.

  
“There is no time to lose, sir.”

When everyone had returned to their rooms and Mr. Crawford and I were alone, we stopped near the staircase.

“What I witnessed tonight was unbelievable. I must get to the root of the problem and solve it as soon as possiblE-ACHOO!”

“You should have taken advantage of the doctor while he was here, don’t you think, Miss Walsh?” the man said.

“It is nothing but a little sniffle.” I assured him, shivering and wrapping the wool shawl around my shoulders “Tomorrow I will be fine.”

“Miss Walsh, is that true? I mean, did you really serve as nurse?”

“Yes sir, I did. I served in a convent, some asylums and two hospitals. I have been fortunate in a certain sense: my father was a specialist and he helped and introduced me into those environments. He was often called to these places, so following him I was allowed to make useful to his patients and learn.”

“Then, tell me, what exactly happened before we reached you in this corridor?” the American asked.

“My cat...” I whispered, “Soriano was pretty agitated, tonight. At first I thought he was still unaccustomed the place, but later I realized that it had felt Lord Muto’s presence… If indeed that was him.”

The man frowned.

“What makes you say that?”

“Whoever that person was, he was not Lord Muto, in a certain sense.” I pointed out.

“Your theory about it?”

“That person,” I murmured “his eyes, the anger, the fear he showed in front of me. Believe me, that person was definitely not your friend, Mr. Crawford. I fear he is using Lord Muto’s body.”

“Using his…? What are you trying to say, miss?” the man asked, more and more perplexed.

“I am trying to say that, besides Mr. Kaiba, Mokuba, me and you, Mr. Crawford, there is a fifth guest in this house. And that guest seems to be a... Oh! How could I define him? A sort of identity disorder, I suppose.”

“Giosafat! I hope you are kidding!”

“Of course not. He is not the first case, after all. Everything seems to connect… One, two, three and more identities can coexist in the same person, each of them with a different personality; they are generated by the patient’s subconscious, following a trauma that did not necessarily happen recently. I am talking of an experience so traumatic that Lord Muto’s mind tries desperately to isolate and erase. Mr. Crawford, I saw his eyes, his behaviors. He looked like a totally different person. Lord Muto himself told me the past days he has been totally unable to remember what happens during his _trance_. After all, I discarded the hypothesis that he might have been a sleepwalker after our first interview, and after questioning the two maids. The diagnosis of the doctor was not completely wrong. Of course simple stress can not have generated all this, but if combined with other problems it can contribute and make the symptoms worse.”

The American rubbed his chin, thoughtful.

“If what you are saying is true it would be as amazing as terrorizing. So, what are we going to do, now? ”

“I need to question Lord Muto, as soon as possible, and...”

I remained silent for a few seconds, while the intrusive sound of the pendulum from the clock rang through the corridor.

Back and forth, _back and forth… Back and…_

“Miss Walsh?”

I blinked and furrowed my brow.

“Forgive me, sir. I am not aware of a definitive cure for this kind of problem. No one is. But I have been thinking to try _hypnotherapy_.”

Mr Crawford looked startled.

“Hypno-! Hm, hypnotherapy, you said?” he repeated, lowering his voice, “Do you intend to hypnotize him?”

“It is the only solution I can afford, at this time. Whoever Lord Muto’s guest is, I have to understand what exactly has generated him.”

“Is it a safe method?”

“It is not a cure, but at least it will allow me to meet the second personality, understand what could have generated it and this could help Lord Muto better deal with his trauma and work on it.” I explained.

“Miss Walsh, forgive my impertinence, but... You have already practiced this, haven’t you?” the man asked me.

“I know the subject, Mr. Crawford. To be honest, I am fairly proud and confident of my prowess as a hypnotist. ”

“Really?”

I winced, seeing nothing but discomfort and dismay in the American's eyes.

“Do not worry, sir. During my training I practiced it on several patients, including some of my neighbors, and everything always went well. You know, one of them was terribly afraid of the water, because of a very interesting trauma developed during his childhood. As a result of two months of therapy and hypnotic sessions, he ran to swim in the Thames. Literally. He was so excited to touch the water after a long time that he remembered not being able to swim only once he threw himself into the river.”

At that point, Mr. Crawford’s face was a mask of wax.

“Do not worry about his fate. After having learned to swim everything has been solved for the better. What I am trying to explain is that hypnosis, associated with a good therapeutic plan, has always had good results in the psychiatric field.” I assured him, crossing my arms on my chest.

“Don’t add anything, Miss Walsh. I hope you know what you are doing. I mean, it does not seem fair to make the situation worse.”

My eyes widened.

“Mr. Crawford.” I enunciated, emphasizing every syllable in his name. “You know almost nothing about me, and your perplexity about my person and my skills is more than natural. But be certain that I shall not disappoint any of you. I shall solve this case as soon as possible, in the most effective way.” I exclaimed, excited and as sure of myself as I had never been in my life.

The American stared at me, wide-eyed, then, a confident smile appeared again on his face.

“And so be it, my dear. In this case I shall have full confidence in your methods. But please be very careful.” he said, nodding.

“Yes, sir. I will.”

 

 

That night, by order of the landlord, the lamps had been lit along the corridor on the first floor, and a couple of servants stayed available in case the Earl requested assistance during those few hours that separated us from dawn.

Once I reached the door of my bedroom, tired but with nerves still tense, my attention was captured by an open door of an unknown chamber not far from mine, from which came a light and a slight crackling of embers.

It was in that place that I soon found Mr. Kaiba.

Following all those events, I had almost forgotten about the young businessman, who had quickly vanished without a word after the Earl of Hereford had dismissed all us from Lord Muto's bedroom.

Taking advantage of a large patch of darkness that the faint and distant lights of the lamps could not fill, I crouched outside the room and stood silently observing him for several minutes.

He sat at the desk, bent over some thick folders and a large quantity of sheets full of notes, neatly arranged in front of him.

Two oil lamps were lit next to him, and the lights of the flames coming from the big fireplace, in the opposite side of the room, spreaded a pleasant warmth and cast dark and flickering shadows on his concentrated face.

He was writing with dedication and precision, stopping only to consult one or two folders full of documents next to him, or to change sheets or archive what he had just recorded. It was clear from his frown and the rhythm with which he moved in that square of room, that he was keeping his mind occupied by taking care of important business.

_Managing your family’s accounts is giving me gray hairs!_

I remembered his words, spoken that same morning during breakfast...

So, he was not a ‘regular’ guest; it was very likely that he was there to take care of that duty.

Earlier, given the delicate situation and since he had not been allowed to stay at Lord Muto’s side, it was easy to understand why he had not simply retired to his room to rest.

Perhaps, working was what he needed both to make himself feel useful to the family and to Lord Muto, and to keep the thoughts of what happened just a few hours ago at bay.

I could not imagine what was going through his head at that moment. Now more than ever, it was impossible to access his thoughts and emotions. They were far from surfacing on that lean, pleasant and austere face...

“Are you chasing ghosts, out there, Miss Walsh?”

I kept my breath, open-eyed.

Timidly, I came out from the dark, stopping on the doorstep, looking at the ceilings and moving a few and shy steps inside the room.

“I...! No, sir... Actually, I can hardly get back to sleep.” I admitted.

The studio was austere and minimalist, so much that for a few moments I had the strange sensation of having crossed the threshold of a totally different house from the lavish one I had behind.

A dark-blue Regency armchair and a huge desk of the same style gave their back to two impressive libraries, filled with orderly rows of volumes and folders; lastly, with a bit of surprise, not far from a French window, I saw the tiny figure of Mokuba, deeply asleep and wrapped in his brother nightgown, who was resting on an elegant canapé near the fireplace.

Just as I stopped at the desk I noticed the only ornaments of that rigidly furnished place were a large embroidered carpet and a peculiar ornament placed on the desk: a skillfully decorated mythological figure of a white dragon with sapphire eyes lit up by the oil lamp next to it.

“Oh, how beautiful…”

“Do not. Touch. The paperweight.” the man warned me.

Swallowing, I froze immediately my extended arm in place, then sheepishly retreated it back under my shawl.

The wall clock on our side struck half past four in the morning.

“My apologies. I see you are very busy,” I observed “and I seem to understand that I am rather unwelcome to you, Mr. Kaiba. Despite this, I hope that from now on things can improve among us...”

“Miss Walsh, If it can help you sleep better, your presence is totally indifferent to me.” he replied, coldly “I am here for work, not to sustain useless courtesy visits and friendly chats with strangers.”

That answer made my lips twitch and then purse tightly.

“Me neither, sir. Not from now on, at least.” I replied “After what I witnessed, I assure you I shall do my best to make myself helpful in the following days.” I reassured him.

“Hm. Despite the state of shock in which you clearly are right now?” Mr. Kaiba muttered.

“It will pass, sir.”

“it will pass, you say.” he repeated, thoughtful, continuing in his work. Since I had entered the room, he had not raised his gaze on me once.

“You know, it is very curious that Lord Muto has never mentioned to his family about you before, Miss Walsh.”

“I am glad he didn’t.” I assured him, taking seat on the chair in front of the desk “There is nothing special about me. It is likely that Lord Muto has not found a suitable opportunity to do so.” I shuddered.

“If you know Lord Muto as deeply as you say, or how much you want us to believe, you would know that this is impossible. He has great consideration of his friends. Perhaps too much.” he affirmed “It just seems strange to me that he has decided to turn in such a delicate moment to a person whom he has never referred to before.”

At that point his face lifted and his eyes did not stray from mine for the rest of the conversation. I admit I never found myself more uncomfortable in my life.

It was in consequence of those words and gazes that I understood that I would never be able to dispel the suspicions Mr. Kaiba had about me and my presence in that house...

“Since you affirm your complete indifference towards me, sir, I cannot see what the problem is. But I assure you I am nothing but a good friend who finally has the occasion to make herself useful.”

“A friend I do not see how she can make herself more useful than she has already done so far.”

Sweat began to bead at my temple.

“Well, it would be kind of you to give me a chance, would it not?”

“In my opinion, miss, it would not be appropriate for you and Mr. Crawford to extend your stay here further.”

I frowned.

“Pardon?”

“Given the circumstance, I would recommend you to leave this house, before things become even more dangerous. As you have noticed yourself, Lord Muto and his family are not in the best condition to entertain guests.”

“Well, as I said, I am not here to be entertained, Mr. Kaiba. I kindly thank you for your advice, and I am sure you are telling all this for my safety, but I fear I shall not be able to follow it.”

I was almost certain I had signed my condemnation to death, when I saw a grim glow from those blue eyes.

How should I behave? He had given me a clear sign that he had understood something, about me...

I began to wonder if that was not the right time to reveal to him my role and true purpose, but immediately I came to my senses.

No. I could not betray the word given to Lord Muto.

If I had revealed everything to Mr. Kaiba, the Earl and him would certainly kick me out of the abode in spite of the courtesy and the good etiquette to the guests, and I would have disappointed my patient and broke the terms of our contract.

No. Definitely no!

I felt I was on the right track as far as Lord Muto’s case was concerned. Soon, I would have the opportunity to start therapy and perform hypnosis to solve his case. Only once we had gotten to the bottom of his problem could I have talked to Lord Muto and asked him permission to reveal the matter to his worried partner ... To his fearsome and worried partner.

I stood up, trying to keep calm in front of those intimidating and suspicious eyes.

“Miss Walsh,” he said, and his voice became more sharp “I cannot help but think that you are taking this as a game.”

“Of course not! But advising me to leave will not help Lord Muto to feel bette-”

“And do you think that keeping you here would improve Lord Muto’ situation?” The ferocity that he was impressing in every whisper made me shiver “What makes you so terribly and irrepressibly insolent?”

A lump in my throat prevented me from going any further, but I did not want that conversation to end without being able to face that man. There was nothing I could do to please him in any way, but I could let it be understood that I was not a threat.

“Mr. Kaiba, I fear you are confusing insolence with frankness.” I replied firmly, “I am here because Lord Muto’s health is of concern to me; and after what I witnessed to-night, I am not going to abandon him in this time of need. Whether I am indifferent or unwelcome to you, I hope that at least about Lord Muto we will meet on common ground. We both have his best interests in mind. Moreover, if I were Lord Muto, I would not be abandoned by my family and friends in a difficult time like this.”

“Hm… One of his biggest flaws.”

After those last enigmatic words, Mr. Kaiba remained silent, doing what my patient previously had warned me of; he was _analyzing_ and _classifying_ me.

He leaned against the back of the chair, intertwining his tapered fingers and bringing them to support his chin.

I stood motionless, struggling to not submit to those intense eyes.

I was lying to him on so many points, and it was almost certain that I could never erase the suspicious impression I gave him, but I could make him read in my eyes all my good intentions.

Before I could notice, he opened a drawer and pulled out a small calling card with printed on his initials.

“Go and rest.” he dismissed me. “You shall need it.”

A slight smile appeared on my lips. After those last words, I felt like I had finally earned a little of his trust.

“Just between us, Miss Walsh, from a very frank person to another; losing hours of sleep makes your appearance very disturbing.”

A rebellious curl broke free from my rags and fell on my forehead. I grabbed my shawl and, blushing up to the ears, I left the studio in a hurry.

There was no hope for anyone to enter that man's good graces. There was nothing else to do but resign in this regard.

“Good night, Mr. Roland.”

“Oh, good night, Miss Walsh.” Mr. Roland said to me as I passed him in the corridor.

Before getting back to my bed, I watched the butler enter Mr. Kaiba's studio and close the door behind him.

  
Mr. Roland stopped in front of the man bent over a calling card, hastened to sign and envelope it.

“Did you want to see me, Mr. Kaiba? Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Roland, listen carefully. From now on, I want you to keep an eye on that woman.” the man ordered.

“You mean Miss Walsh? Y-yes, sir. As you wish.”

Seto Kaiba’s blue eyes shifted from the man to the envelope he had in front of him, on the desk.

“One last thing...” he added, lifting it up and tendering it to the butler “In the morning, while you will be out, telegraph to Dr. Seward for a special consultation. This conversation remains between us, do I make myself clear?”

Mr. Roland took the envelope and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Yes, sir. It shall be done.”

  
_I want you to keep an eye on that woman..._

_Telegraph to Dr. Seward for a special consultation…_

  
The door of the studio opened as the one of my bedroom closed. After having heard the butler’s footsteps walking away from the corridor, I took a deep breath, sliding down against my door to the ground, pale as a ghost, trying not to let myself panic.

“Oh no...”

 

**CONTINUE. (Next chapter up Thursday Feb.28 th)**

 


	6. Assault on the bank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The characters in this story belong to Kazuki Takahashi.  
> -During the reading you might find some numbers related to the footnotes at the end of the chapter, in order to explain customs and traditions, way of saying and more about this peculiar era.  
> -Please, mind that the story is set in the second half of the 19th century: references of psychological, neurological and biological nature are relevant to that historical period; the way of acting and thinking of the characters, customs, and ideals of the Victorian era do not necessarily reflect mine.  
> -If you have any advice of opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!

 

** -Chapter 6: Assault on the bank-  **

As I lay in bed in the few hours before dawn attempting to sleep, my ears would alert to any sound of footsteps outside my room.

From time to time exhaustion would cause me to doze off, but as soon as I began to bask in a deep sleep, fed by the warmth of the sheets and the softness of the pillows, my mind reactivated, alerted, returning to mentally replaying the events of the night just passed.

It was just in one of those moments that a loud and thundering bark came from outside, startling me.

“What time is it?” I exclaimed, disoriented, looking at the clock.

Half past seven in the morning.

“Good God!” I shouted at the cat, still curled up on the quilt, at my feet “I hope Mr. Roland has not left the house yet!”

The great noise, meantime, continued in the near driveway.

“Demons! Go away! I am warning you! Stay away from me!”

“What is happening out there?”

Wearing my wool shawl, I walked out onto the balcony, followed by the cat, and looked for the source of that racket.

“Oh! Mr. Wheeler, good morning.” I greeted him, finding the young man, once again busy running from the Great Danes which had been able to escape the wrought iron gates again. Now they were chasing my patient’s friend though the whitewashed avenue. The poor man was holding his briefcase close to his chest and he was probably on his way to work when he was intercepted by them...

“Good morning, Miss Walsh!” he panted, raising his top hat in greeting “Might I ask you to stop these beasts, please?” he cried, desperately.

“Oh, I would like to, however I am nothing but a guest, I do not think they would listen to me.” I said dismayed, wrapping more my shawl around my shoulders and shivering at the morning breeze.

To be honest, from my point of view, those big puppies did not seem to have any ill intentions against him. When Mr. Wheeler galloped around the street lamps, Ermos, Timaeus and Critias just trotted after him, I dare say almost delighted from that game, snapping at the man when he began to slowing down.

“Mr. Wheeler, why do not you try to stop yourself?” I suggested “I believe they just want to play with you.”

“Trying to stop?” he replied, forcing himself to climb - in a rather funny way - one of the nearby lamps, “Did you see their teeth? They are sharper than knives!”

“I see. If you say so...”

I shrugged and I got back in my room before getting a cold.

I had something else to think about, and after that moment of distraction, all my concerns returned to haunt me.

“Oh no! Mr. Roland!”

I got rid of my shawl and nightgown and stopped in front of the closet, pulling out of it the first garment in reach.

Hopping awkwardly around the room, I put on my stockings, drawers and boots, slipped into the corset, fastening it about my waist; then I wore the crinolette, some underskirts and my morning suit.

“Here, Soriano. Let’s go. Quick.”

Ten minutes later I was about to leave the room when, after opening the door, I found Tea just in front of me; in her arms she carried a large amount of magazines, small glass bottles of floral essences, and some headpieces.

“Miss Walsh, ” she said, surprised, making a curtsy “where are you going?”

“Tea. I- I am going to the dining room, for breakfast. Where else?”

“But… Are you dressed already? You should have wait for me. It is my duty to help you prepare.”

“Oh. I am sorry, I am used to getting dressed by myself... But if they ask me, I shall say that you helped me. All right?”

I was in a hurry, but the maid frowned; she did not stop staring at my hair, and I could not help but wondering if I had forgotten to undo some rags.

“With all due respect, Miss Walsh, I can not allow you to get out of this room with your hair unmade. I would risk getting fired.”

I blushed. Was my hair so terrible?

Throwing a quick gaze at my reflection in the toilette mirror, I had to admit the maid was right. I did not pay much attention in styling my hair that morning, limiting myself in combing the curls backwards, blocking them with the usual barrette.

The maid led me back into the room and closed the door behind us.

“You know, Miss Walsh, some days ago Mana bought a couple of hairstyling magazines and, since last night we could not sleep, we studied a couple of coiffure that may fit your face. Have a seat, please.”

She was so enthusiastic about finally being able to show off her talents that I did not have the courage to reply. I just asked her for something quick and not too elaborate, so as not to take too much time.

“Tea, is Mr. Roland already gone out?” I asked, while she began to comb and perfume my hair with the essences that she had brought with her.

“Not yet, Miss Walsh. He was very busy handling the servitude this morning… Anyway, I do not think he will get out before you, Mr. Kaiba and Mr. Crawford have finished breakfast. Do you need something from him, perhaps?”

“Well, nothing…”

She gave me the magazines and showed me the chosen hairstyle, then she began to gather my hair in a large bun with some curls at the top of my head; instead of the classic fall of curls on the shoulders, we decided on twisting the remaining hair into a beautiful, spiraling curl that reached my waist.

When fifteen minutes later the maid finally left me, both satisfied of her work, I went out of the bedroom with the cat in tow, leaving behind me a trail of lily-of-the-valley essence that made me sneeze.

 

I had almost reached the stairs, still wondering how I could stop Mr. Roland from telegraphing to Dr. Seward, when I saw Mr. Kaiba’s business partner leaving his bedroom.

“Mr. Crawford!”

“Oh! Good morning, Miss Walsh.”

“Have you seen Mr. Kaiba, sir?” I asked.

“I was just going down to meet him for breakfast in the dining room. Tell me, did something happen, my dear?”

“I hope it is not too late.” I said, walking alongside the silver haired man. I gave him a quick summary of what happened between me and his business partner, the past night in the studio.

“Gosh!” he exclaimed, wide-eyed, “We must stop Roland. But how? We certainly cannot order him to disregard Kaiba-boy's orders, and since he asked the butler to keep an eye on you, this limits your-”

I stopped suddenly.

“An eye on me?” I repeated, thoughtful.

“This is such a big problem.”

I turned my gaze to him.

“No… not necessarily. Mr. Crawford, I believe I can take advantage of the problem to our benefit.”

The American frowned, puzzled.

“Whatever you have planned, be very cautious, Miss Walsh.”

“What I ask of you, sir, is to do everything possible to keep Mr. Kaiba's attention away from me, if the situation arise.”

“Uh? So be it. I shall try my best.”

Suddenly, we heard clattering in the dining room and the voice of Mr. Roland addressing someone.

“Kaiba-boy is already downstairs.” the businessman said, lowering his voice.

“Do not let him wait, then.”

I took a deep breath and we went downstairs.

There was no one nearby. The tenants, except Mr. Kaiba, were probably still in their bedrooms, since breakfast was normally served to them in bed, and at that moment there was no trace of menservants.

When we entered the dining room, Mr. Kaiba was already seated at the table near the window and the butler was delivering him the morning correspondence, together with the newspaper.

“Good morning, my fellow. Forgive us for the small delay.” smiled the American, taking seat in front of him.

Mr. Kaiba merely grunted. An hint of violet shadow under his always severe and vigilant eyes gave us a more than clear idea of how he had spent the few hours before dawn.

“How does Lord Muto feel this morning?” I kindly asked, while the valet approached to serve us good porridge, hot bread and omelettes.

“He says he feels well,” the young businessman muttered, receiving his course, “and if he wants to keep feeling well, it would be better for him to spend the day resting in bed.” he added, in a way that seemed to warn us not to disturb his _fiancè_ ’s rest.

While we were eating, with the excuse of turning towards the guests to talk with them, I occasionally glanced at the butler standing next to the buffet table, surprised in realizing that he had taken very seriously the orders Mr. Kaiba has given him.

Despite this, he was clearly drowsy. Poor man. His eyes were two black holes; he barely kept them open, trying to show himself awake and attentive. Nevertheless, having an entire mansion with its exhausted servitude to lead, receiving orders and tasks from each family member, and keeping a certain level of attention was turning out to be very complex for him.

And unfortunately for Mr. Roland, it was to my advantage.

I was about considering how to act, when my attention was again captured by Mr. Kaiba, who started.

Some news reported in the newspaper had made his face expressive as I had never seen it before. His eyes were so dilated and his expression so intense that his sapphire gaze  resembled a threatening stormy sea that could have swallowed anyone on his way.

“‘ _The Times_ ’ does not bear good news, to-day, does it?” the American asked, while Mr. Kaiba’s gaze went through the page, carefully reading each single line with a furious and incredulous air.

Perplexed, his colleague left his omelette and opened his copy, looking for the article that had captured the attention of the young man.

“Giosafat!” he exclaimed, boggled “The bank of London has been attacked!”

“Attacked?” I asked, goggle-eyed “You mean robbed?”

I bent as far as the corset boning let me, leaning out by Mr. Crawford side, looking for the article in question and reading it carefully, while the elder man turned his gaze on his business partner.

 

 

“Ah, Kaiba-boy, it cannot be. Please, let’s keep our cool.” he said, wary, bending his thin lips in an uncertain smile “It is likely that the journalists have run out of news and have simply exaggerated a small robbery to sell a few more copies.”

Mr. Kaiba threw away ‘ _The Times_ ’ and opened the first correspondence he got, under our worried gaze.

The newspaper fell between the tableware, open, and we caught sight of a lithography which represented the scene of the crime.

The entire neoclassical facade of the imposing building was, indeed, reduced to a pile of rubble dirt scattered on the stairs and on the nearby road, while, where once had to be the lobby, large groups of policemen were trying to restore calm among a curious audience.

“Good God, how-?” I stammered, speechless.

The letters from the LSE headquarters that Mr. Kaiba had received, in the meanwhile, seemed to give him some more clarification, however they did not provide reassuring information.

The man’s hands were a bundle of nerves as they clutched the paper in a nearly fatal grip.

“A-awesome. I would like to know what caused this collapse.” the American said “Gosh, if we were not in London, I would dare to say a herd of angry buffaloes!”

“What does Scotland Yard say?” I demanded.

In reading the last words in the letter, Mr. Kaiba's sapphire eyes acquired an unusual dark tone while Soriano played at his feet with a crumpled envelope. I  threw a warning glare at the pet, since I seriously feared that the young man would send the poor creature out of the room with a powerful kick in the backside.

“It does not report anything concrete. Those agents are lead by very manifestation of incompetence!”

“Anyway, what about if it was the work of several criminals and a few good doses of dynamite?”

“We are in London, Pegasus, not in the mines of Wyoming.” Mr. Kaiba replied, getting up and passing us, crossing the hall, “There is no time to waste. I must go there and try to figure out how things went on my own.”

“But you cannot, my fellow.” Mr. Crawford reminded him “Did you forget? Till the official end of the investigation, you cannot approach the bank.”

“The LSE has sent a representative there as well to understand what happened. I am part of the LSE as well, and be sure that nothing shall prevent me from entering my bank!”

“Very well. As you wish. But I shall come with you.” Mr. Crawford said, leaving his meat on the dish and following his business partner after having blinked at me “You know, as your business partner as well as represented by overseas, I suppose I shall have to send a telegraph to New York by the evening. I need to see with my own eyes.”

“This is not necessary, Pegasus. I will try to get back as soon as possible. Yami has not completely recovered yet...”

“Do not worry about Lord Muto, Mr. Kaiba.” I said, getting up from my seat, “I shall take care of him while His grace and Lord Yugi are resting.”

“Did you hear, Kaiba-boy?” Mr. Crawford smiled, grabbing his top hat and his walking cane “No need to worry about. Shall we go?”

Mr. Kaiba prepared himself to leave, as well, wearing his black ulster coat and his leather gloves.

“I warn you, Miss Walsh: make sure he does not move till my return, is that clear?” he hissed, “Pegasus, let’s go before I change my mind.”

  
When the sleepy Mr. Roland closed the front door behind the leaving hansom, and went back to the dining room where I was finishing my meal, I wasted no time.

I had to get hold of that message before it came out of that house, but I certainly could not take any illicit action that would have a risk of being discovered. The only solution that came to my rescue at that moment was hypnosis.

I was determined to induce the man into a hypnotic trance, a sort of catalystia favored by that drowsiness and desire for rest that his dark-circled eyes barely managed to mask.

“Mr. Roland, I hope you have managed to rest properly tonight. Are you sure you feel well?” I asked, sipping my hot punch.

The eyes of the man turned to me and his head tiredly moved in a timid nod.

"Of course, Miss Walsh, I am perfectly fine..."

"Oh, there is no need to hide it. Nobody, after what happened the past night, would be able to rest with dignity. Above all you, who have always so many tasks to do, and fulfill your duties in such an excellent way. Your tiredness and your pallor are more than justifiable." I turned to him in a placid and calm tone, keeping my voice to a constant, almost monotonous timbre.

Noticing that I had his most complete attention, I went on.

"At this moment it would not surprise me if you felt the strong and uncontrollable desire to fall asleep. No one would prevent it, on the other hand. In this house at the moment everyone is sleeping; it does not necessarily have to be different for you. You have many tasks to take care of, but you shall not be able to perform your duties to your best, if you do not sleep properly. Just a few minutes, do not worry. Take a seat on the chair next to you." I suggested, continuing to maintain a close eye contact with him " Please, have a seat."

He remained motionless, standing.

"You cannot stand up, since you feel so heavy. You are risking to fall down. Take a seat on that chair, please, and rest just as long as I need to finish my meal. I only ask you to sleep for a few minutes, since you are so tired. Close your eyes and sleep for a few minutes while listening to my voice."

For a few moments the situation remained unchanged, but after I had turned a nod to him, kindly repeating my words, I saw his tense, wooden body tilt up to let himself go rigidly against the padded back of the chair.

"Very well, Mr. Roland. That chair is very comfortable and soft, welcomes you and gives you all the energy you need. You are starting to feel refreshed already and when I shall ask you to wake up, you shall feel even better, believe me."

In the meantime, the ticking of the pendulum supported the rhythm of my words.

The man sat like a wooden mannequin on the chair, always alert and attentive in following my words, however, as I continued to speak, Mr. Roland’s body softened and sagged more and more against the back of the chair, the tension slowly abandoned him, the color resurfaced on his cheeks… But it was not yet enough. His jaw was very tense yet.

"Mr. Roland, allow me to free you from a great burden that you carry with you." I added, “Something you have is preventing you from completely relaxing; if you do not get rid of it, it shall weigh you down further. As soon as you will let go of that burden and as soon you can rest worthily. Please, free yourself without haste, when you think it is necessary, only when you perceive that burden increase on you till it becomes annoying."

As I had foreseen, in his mind the burden I was mentioning was that message; the symbol of a commitment taken with Mr. Kaiba, something that it was inconceivable not to complete and that stood like a wall between him and his rest.

"You know you shall not reach the perfect sleep till you give up that burden. Let it go, please, and you shall have finally fulfilled the duty that is so important to you. Wherever this burden is found, you are free to move your arms to take it off."

And he did it.

In front of my eyes he moved his arms and brought them up to his chest, to pull aside the jacket of his anthracite gray suit. His hands worked together, pulling the sealed letter out of a pocket inside it.

Despite the excitement I felt at that moment, I returned to him in a modulated tone.

"Very well. Do you perceive its heavy weight? Now, leave it, and the order you have received on it shall be fulfilled and you shall be very relieved, ready to rest, because you always manage to fully satisfy those who make you a request. It is well known."

He held his arm out in front of him, as if he were standing in front of a counter and facing someone ready to receive the envelope.

His fingers relaxed and his right hand let go of the message.

In a couple of seconds, I finally can see his jaw relaxing.

"You did a splendid job, Mr. Roland." I said, "Now you can feel that the burden on you has vanished completely, and now you can give yourself five minutes of rest. Do not worry, they shall be more than necessary to regain your energy and sleep lost last night. When the clock strikes ten o'clock, you shall wake up. In doing it, please, go to the entrance because, there, you shall find something that shall give you even more relief and satisfaction. Now, sleep, Mr. Roland."

At that precise moment I had to support him to make sure that, by letting go completely to rest, he would not fall to the ground.

After I was assured that he could not hurt himself, I raised the letter from the carpet.

It was only a few minutes to ten.

I walked away from the dining room and ran quickly to the first floor. There, I closed the door of my bedroom, opened the envelope, freeing it from its scarlet red seal, and read its contents, paling.

  
_Medical consultation request. Utmost Urgency. Dr. in Medicine J. J. Seward. Carfax._

  
“Just as I thought...” I looked away from those few lines, “He turned to John."

The cat, who had promptly followed me, mewed.

Four minutes to ten.

I approached the desk, where I had placed the necessary for correspondence and I began to prepare a false answer to the request of Mr. Kaiba, writing an anonymous calling card, taking care to give a semblance of masculine calligraphy to the words I was tracing with the black ink.

Two minutes to ten.

I left the writing material and I rushed down the stairs; with my heart hammering harder and harder in my chest at the thought that someone might find Mr. Roland asleep and wake him up too early, I found the silver tray where I left the correspondence, leaving  there the card, then I ran to the dining room.

Mr. Roland was still there and I heard from the downstairs the valet coming back from the kitchen, so I threw myself at my seat at the table, in the exact position in which the butler had found me before I began to hypnotize him.

The pendulum struck ten o'clock.

Mr. Roland suddenly awoke, and yawning he rose from the chair, ignoring me, briskly walking towards the entrance under my eyes.

I could see him pick up my envelope and with great satisfaction put it in his pocket, whistling.

“Amazing.” I whispered in wonder.

He was so tired and eager to rest that by sending him into a trance his mind had convinced himself that he had accomplished his task of going and return to the post office on his own!

As if only a few minutes before I had maintained an endless state of apnea, I sighed with relief just as the man, cheerful, perky and full of energy as if he had returned after a month's stay in Bath, returned to the dining room. In doing so, he winced when he saw me sitting at the table.

"Oh! Miss Walsh!"

"Yes... Mr. Roland?" I panted, noticing at that moment my labored breathing and a sense of strong oppression in my lungs.

"Miss Walsh, are you sick? You are purple!"

At those words the muscles of my face twitched, my jaw was pierced by a thrill, my lungs forced me to exhale, rebelling against the whalebones of my corset that enveloped them. With a smile that wanted to be reassuring, but that left the man quite impressed, I nodded.

"Yes. Yes I am fine… May I have ... just a couple of glasses of water?" I asked, catching my breath to avoid a dramatic fainting in front of him an the other worried manservants.

 

It was against the backdrop of a gray, snowy morning that the hansom stopped at the side of the building.

The entire area surrounding the bank resembled a big anthill that had been trampled; the air of the crowded scene was saturated with tension, curiosity and fear.

Despite the lithography in the newspaper giving a fairly accurate idea of the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred, being at the center of that chaos generated by passersby, journalists who cried out for answers, and workers who tried their best to secure the area and avoid others accidents, was quite another thing.

There were policemen everywhere around the building. Some patrolled the entrances of the bank, others tried to keep the crowd away from the centre of collapse.

As this chaos swirled before Mr. Kaiba’s and Mr. Crawford’s eyes, a familiar voice reached their ears, catching their attention.

“Come on, Tristan. I beg you! You are the son of the current bank director, you definitely know something more about this disaster!”

“Wait, Kaiba-boy. Is that Mr. Wheeler, isn’t he?”

“Hm.”

“I already told you, Joey.” said a tall and thin boy with a mop of brown hair, to his young friend, “Even if I had information, without the consent of the director and the head of the police, I could not reveal anything. Neither to my mother, nor to my best friend.” he explained, doing everything possible to contain the curiosity of his friend and the other journalists with some policemen “Rather, may I know what are you doing here with that jotter in your hand?”

At that question Mr. Wheeler winced.

“Uh? What am I doing? W-well, ehr… Absolutely nothing, I am just curious-”

“Mr. Wheeler got kicked out of the offices of ‘ _The Times_ ’ Typography Press after he destroyed three rotary machines, preventing the release of the newspaper for a whole week, causing disasters for several thousand of pounds.” explained Mr. Kaiba, approaching the two young men, “Now he is probably trying to reintegrate himself into the staff by pretending to be a journalist.”

“Just wait a second, Kaiba! How dare you-!”

“Mr. Kaiba, sir, I was sure you would come!” the man named Tristan said, relieved, signaling a policeman to let the two businessmen pass, “Thank God, I dare say.”

“Do not thank God, Taylor. I came here for on my own accord.” Mr. Kaiba replied, passing Mr. Wheeler and the crowd around, followed by the American.

“Wait, how did you know, Kaiba?!” Mr. Wheeler asked, being immediately blocked by one of the guards “Who told you-!?”

“I am a consultant at the London Stock Exchange, Wheeler. The week of the accident, the stock shares ofthe newspaper have fallen to historic limits. Plus, the next day one of yours bellboys went around telling the whole LSE headquarters that the deliveries of the newspaper were temporarily suspended because of an idiot who had tripped over the tapes of the rotary presses.” he added, coldly, leaving the blond lad behind.

“Really?” asked Mr. Taylor, turning to his friend before entering the bank with the two men, “It happened like that? Joey, you are such a disaster.”

“What! You do not have any less problems than me at the moment, Tristan! Hey! Did you hear me? And tell me why they can go in and I cannot?!” Mr. Wheeler shouted, being pushed away by the crowd of journalists and photographers around him “Hey! Do not push, all of you! Damn!”

“I need to talk to the bank director, Taylor.” Mr. Kaiba explained, after entered the building.

“I fear this is impossible at this time, sir. My father is at the Scotland Yard headquarters. As you can imagine, he has not had a moment's respite since the early morning.”

“Then, tell me, what on Earth happened to this place? It looks like a hurricane has passed through here.” Mr. Kaiba hissed, passing groups of investigators and rubble.

Mr. Tristan Taylor, vice-director and youngest son of the current bank director, pale and visibly upset by the chaos that reigned in the place since the early hours of dawn, lead the two businessmen to the offices area.

Once the doors were closed behind them, the three men were met by a muffled silence that left them stunned for a moment.

“Such a vibrant environment!” Mr. Crawford said, staring at the place, where furniture and files lay scattered and overturned everywhere, “Ye dear olde _Londinium_ always shows us a turn of events.”

“Get to the point, Taylor.” said Mr. Kaiba, impatient, “I did not temporarily give up the direction of this place to get it back to hell again like in my stepfather's time.”

“Sir, as you already know, even the safes in the basements have been emptied.” the vice-director explained, “Whatever value in the building has been barbarously overturned. Even the gold hands of the wall clock, sir!” wanted to clarify Mr. Taylor, pointing the dial on the clock without its hands, behind Mr. Crawford.

“Giosafat!” the American exclaimed, “Seems the thieves just had wanted to steal everything. Even the time!”

Mr. Kaiba moved a chair and took seat.

“This is not time for your sarcasm, Pegasus.” he grumbled between his teeth, “In this hell, and thanks to who is managing the investigations, it will be impossible to get to the bottom of all this.”

The vice-director swallowed hard and stared at the man.

“I was just about to get to that part, sir. About the one responsible...”

“Do you know the ones responsible in all this is?”

“The only one responsible, sir.”

“The only-? Was all this caused by one man?! Who can-”

“The thief Bakura.” revealed Mr. Taylor, in one breath, “I knew it a few moments before your arrived.”

Pale, Mr. Crawford turned his gaze away from the window, and placed it on the two men.

“No! It can’t be!”

“When on Earth were you planning on telling me, Taylor?” Mr. Kaiba hissed as he stood from his seat, furious.

The son of the director swallowed another time.

“A f-few minutes before your arrival, sir, a card and a coin has been found in one of the safes… They had been left by the thief.” he concluded.

Mr. Kaiba turned heel and stormed out of the office, slamming the door on his way out with such violence that it came of his hinges and crashed to the floor, attracting the attention of anyone in the adjacent corridor.

“Kaiba-boy, this is definitely not the way to deal with the problem.” said Mr. Crawford, struggling to pick his way through the rubble to follow his business partner.

“CHIEF TRUDGE!” Mr. Kaiba shouted, going down to the lower level and passing the guards at the entrance of the vault.

The chief T. Trudge of Scotland Yard was inside there.

A little taller and broader in build than Mr. Kaiba, with an impressive black oil-colored eyebrows, arrogant anthracite eyes and a Mediterranean olive complexion, he was impeccable in his dark uniform; the helmet, bearing the coat of arms of Scotland Yard, shone almost more than the sun (a sign of the constant care that the man gave its), despite the small leather strap of the headgear that crossed his prominent chin, conferred to his full and protruding lips, and therefore to his whole face, an aspect even more intimidating.

He was known in London for his iron fist and his irreproachable and admirable sense of duty and justice; this peculiarity made him a feared and respected character, but in the most of the cases they were nothing more than a façade; those who knew him well, infact, were aware that his sense of morality was used to conceal his dullness and haughtiness.

“Look who is there.” the policeman boomed, gazing at the approaching man, with a judging stare “Mr. Seto Kaiba. Son of the deceased ex-director of this bank: Gozaburo Kaiba-”

“Stepson.” Mr. Kaiba corrected him, stopping in front of the man and sustaining his harsh gaze “Well, chief, have you gotten to the bottom of all this or has Scotland Yard come just to show off the new uniforms in front of journalists?”

The agent frowned.

“Mr. Kaiba, I suppose it is not necessary to remind you that you risk much in presenting yourself here. You have been suspended from your role as director of this bank. I should arrest you at this very moment.”

“I am not here as bank director but as representative of the LSE, so I ask you therefore to be very scrupulous in referring to me the facts, or the first thing I shall take care of when I return to this bank as director shall be to report the inefficiency of Scotland Yard, and the past of his current chief.”

“Are you threatening me, sir?” the chief grinned, approaching his face to that of the man in front of him.

“Oh! There you are!”

The American entered the vault just in time to stop any further unpleasantries.

“Mr. Taylor told us about a message, chief.” he explained, taking a chance to look at the surroundings.

“For God’s sake!” chief Trudge exclaimed “What part of ‘Do not allow anyone to enter to the vault’ is not clear to you idiots?” He screamed at the two subordinates next the entrance “Now, who are you, Mr-?” he growled.

“Pegasus J. Crawford, chief. From _New York Stock Exchange_.”

“Hm. I see. Anyway, as you can see yourself, Mr. Crawford...” said the chief, pointing to the floor where a sheet of paper with scribbled writing on it lay, together with a tiny coin.

The two men approached the point indicated.

“Hieroglyphs. A sort of peculiar signature.” chief Trudge explained “ We are waiting for the experts from the British Museum to translate the message.”

Mr. Kaiba turned to his business partner.

“Pegasus?”

“Let me see. May I, chief?” The American picked up the sheet of paper “Oh! Gosh.  This message adds insult to injury. I am quite afraid, my friends, it refers to the penny. We could translate it as: ‘ _For a new and profitable start._ ’”

Mr. Kaiba gritted his teeth, and the chief shook his head, bewildered.

“Rascal! Are you sure it says that? I really wish I didn’t know.”

“Bakura… So, he  really is back.” the American murmured , thoughtfully, “His reprehensible actions are known even overseas. But it is still a mystery how he could have caused all this.”

“I cannot imagine it, but be sure that if I should find him before Scotland Yard do, they shall have to sew him back together.” Seto Kaiba replied, coming out of the vault.

 

  
I was still recovering from the strong emotion of the early morning, after making sure Mr. Roland was in full force and unharmed, when Mana reached and informed me that Lord Muto had asked about me; so, I finally had the opportunity to spend the morning with my patient.

When I entered the studio, I found him sitting on the armchair by the window, wrapped in a brocade smoking jacket and engaged in reading the newspaper.

“Oh, you should not have got up, my lord. Mr. Kaiba specifically requested that you spend the day in bed.”

“Do not be afraid, Miss Walsh. I am not the kind of person who complies with the demands of others if I do not consider it strictly necessary, and he is not the kind of person who expects me to comply entirely with his orders.” he said, looking up from the thick columns of ‘ _The Times_ ’, “If what the newspapers refers is true, worrying that I spend the day locked in my room will become the last of his concerns.”

The apprehension due to the unexpected news just learned showed through his tired face, but he soon returned to give his fullest attention to me and to his problem.

He was very shaken and worried for me, however, it did not take me long to calm him by letting him know about my excellent state of health. He answered some of my simple questions about the incident but, as I feared, even the last 'aggression' seemed to have vanished from his memory.

“A reflection in the corridor, you said?” said Lord Muto, thoughtful, “I do not know, Miss Walsh, maybe it was a candlestick or one of the objects in the glass cabinet...” he replied, clenching his fists “If only I could remember what happened...”

“Do not strain yourself unnecessarily, Lord Muto” I said “It shall not help us.”

“Miss Walsh, did you notice any other details at that time?”

“Let me think… The cat. You know, it was not my choice to enter the corridor. Despite my skepticism, Soriano seemed to have perceived the presence of something outside of the room shortly before the aggression.”

“It is not difficult to believe it. Seems that animals have a sixth sense. If only they could talk...” my patient sighed, while a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

I looked down at the cat, rolled up on the carpet near the lit fireplace, the yellow eyes half-open and focusing on us, as if it understood what we were saying.

“Perhaps they cannot talk, but, listen to me: when I was about to be attacked, - now, please, do not be alarmed and let me continue - Soriano had dashed out of the room, and right at that moment you stopped, frightened by him.”

Lord Muto looked at me, frowning.

“Frightened at the sight of a cat?”

“At least, it seems to be a point for our side, do not you think? There is something which can stop _him_.” I pointed.

Lord Muto turned his amethyst gaze away from me, directing it towards the big fireplace on the opposite wall, where red flames that almost seemed liquid, danced sinuously, stirring from time to time in front of us.

“ _Identity Disorder_ or whatever it is called... I attempted to hurt people I love. I cannot bear this.” he whispered, and his knuckles became even more pale when he clutched the fabric of his trousers between his fingers, nervously. “The next time it could be much more worse.”

“About this,” I intervened “I would like to offer you a solution. If the experiment succeeded, we could get some important information.”

“What are you proposing me, Miss Walsh?”

“I would like to try hypnosis on you, Lord Muto.”

My patient’s eyes widened in bewilderment.

“Hypnosis? Miss Walsh, are you able to practice hypnosis?” he asked, surprised.

“Of course I am.” I assured him, nodding “In this way, I may come to know a good deal of information that is trapped in your mind. If my hypothesis about your double identity is correct, I could establish contact with him; your alter ego.”

“Tell me, how?”

“Regressive Hypnosis. I shall make you live a sort of trance using the word to revive in your mind a precise memory that at the moment you are not able to remember. Basically, I shall access your memory. It is possible that I can recover memories from your childhood. Someone believes that this method can recall memories of previous lives. Hm, maybe it is better not to go too far.”

Lord Muto looked at me, open-eyed.

“Previous lives, you said?”

“Forget it, my lord. After all we do not need to- “

“Miss Walsh, now that you mention it,” he said anxiously, interrupting me, “when I fainted, I experienced a sort of memory that I did not belong to.”

Those words struck a chord in me.

“Please explain. Tell me what happened in this memory.” I invited him, trying to rein in my impatience.

“It was very fast, like opening a window into someone else's life. I opened my eyes to the call of someone who had the same voice as Mr. Kaiba, but I am pretty sure that man was not him, despite he resembled him in an amazing way. Moreover, I addressed to him using another name, and he did the same, talking to me.”

“Very well, please, continue.”

“At that time, I was not Yami. I was lying on the ground, wounded... Do not ask me the reason, I only know that my chest, my hands and the floor were covered with blood. My blood. Then, I heard Mr. Kaiba’s voice calling me and I woke up.” he said, his eyes wide open, staring at the white sheets.

Amazed, I clenched the armrests of my chair.

Was my patient able to enter the memories of his second identity in turn? Was he able to exchange his memories with someone’s? No. How could it be?!

An exchange of memories with himself? An identity disorder was generated by the individual himself, and from that moment they should have the same memories, plus, it was precisely because of the memories of the latter that a second identity could be born. But my patient told me about a memory of a reality that did not belong to him.

“Any other clues? For example, what was there around you, or what was the man’s name in your memories? Can you remember it?” I asked.

Lord Muto furrowed his brows, and for a moment his gaze became vitreous, as if he had fallen in search of that name in the depths of an ocean.

“His name?” he whispered, “I called him Seth. Yes, his name was Seth.”

I nodded, thoughtfully.

“Did you by any chance know a person with this name during your life?”

“No, miss. No one. I am sure of it.”

I could not, however, discard the hypothesis that he had known that person, but that for some reason his memory had removed him, not completely. Sometimes the mind forces itself to forget unpleasant facts and people related to them.

Having to believe him, the only thing that came to my mind was the exotic name of an Egyptian God.

“Egypt-?” I stammered, getting up from my armchair.

So, if that name had Egyptian origin, this could also explain the incomprehensible language used by my patient’s alter ego!

“And that person called me Atem.” Lord Muto added “Pharaoh Atem.”

 

**CONTINUE. (Next chapter up Wednesday April 3rd)**

 


	7. Doubts and fears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The characters in this story belong to Kazuki Takahashi.  
> -During the reading you will find some numbers related to the footnotes at the end of the chapter, in order to explain customs and traditions, way of saying and more about this peculiar era.  
> -Please, mind that the story is set in the second half of the 19th century: references of psychological, neurological and biological nature are relevant to that historical period; the way of acting and thinking of the characters, customs, and ideals of the Victorian era do not necessarily reflect mine.  
> -If you have any advice of opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!

  **-Chapter 7: Doubts and fears-**

 

"Amnesia, flashbacks, visual, tactile, olfactory and gustatory hallucinations, perception of voices, the emergence of emotions, impulses, speeches and actions that the patient does not remember or does not recognize as his own. All this clearly leads us to the certainty of an identity disorder. Except..."

I ran the chalk along the surface of the blackboard, combining the symptoms listed above, one by one. I managed to connect most of them; nevertheless, a couple of these remained detached from the others.

I had added to that list even the smallest and bizarre detail, like the ruby-red shade I noticed in my patient's eyes and the words with which he addressed me that night; I had, in fact, the impression that these last ones were far from being invented sounds and words.

That sentence had a convincing construction in my ears. It was my opinion that those words belonged to a very precise dialectical form that seemed to find a connection to the hallucination Lord Muto had about the mysterious pharaoh.

I walked away from the board a few steps, bringing a hand to my chin, in contemplation.

"Perhaps I am too stubborn in wanting to link all these symptoms... After all, most of them have fully manifested.” I thought “However, I cannot get the scene from the past night out of my mind." I had to admit, turning to the cat sitting on the table next to me "Plus, I have not met yet other typical symptoms in Lord Muto, that normally appear in presence of a dissociative disorder. Manifestations of states of anxiety and panic attacks, for example."

The hallucination, or what Lord Muto had defined ‘ _a memory that he did not belong to_ ’, had seen as protagonists a certain pharaoh named Atem, mortally wounded, and next to him a man named Seth.

"What if that unknown language was ancient Egyptian?"

Without uttering another word, and crossed by a strange misgiving that was making its way into my mind, I stepped between the shelves of the library; after an incessant search, I slipped from the large bookcase of walnut all the volumes concerning Egypt. With these in my arms, I staggered to the table.

The cat sniffed them, intrigued, and then raised the yellow, round eyes on me, emitting a low meow.

"Yes, I am doing it for real. I promised myself I would not discount any hypothesis. Not even the most unlikely.” my reply was.

Concentrated, I began to leaf through those thick manuals.

In the event that I had not discovered anything relevant about the existence of that pharaoh, I would have give to my patient full confirmation of my diagnosis.

I was immersed in the pages of those texts when one of the sliding doors opened, and Mokuba entered the library.

"What are you doing here, Miss Walsh?" he asked, surprised, clutching some notebooks and a huge manual to his chest and turning to close the door.

Before he could turn back and cross the room, Soriano leaped from the table to the top of the blackboard; through that movement, it unbalanced and caused the dark plate to rotate on the central pivot, hiding the covered side of my notes and leaving the neat part visible.

"AH! Well, s-since Lord Muto was so busy, this morning, I decided to read something, to spend the time." I explained, trying to cover with my voice the sound of the thud that the pet produced after that movement, then watching him dashing between the shelves.

"I see." the child said, approaching the table and taking a seat in front of me, throwing a puzzled glance at the pile of thick volumes in precarious balance.

"And you?” I asked “Why are you here?"

It was one of the afternoons he devoted to study, and I soon discovered it was not a governess or a qualified private teacher to take care of the child's education programs, but his own brother. The latter, in fact, usually defined Mokuba’ study path at a almost inhuman rhythm, through lists of readings, tasks and research to be performed.

I was puzzled by the huge amount of work and commitment that the man demanded from his little brother, but Mokuba took his duties very seriously, explaining that if his brother gave him such advanced tasks and tests, it meant that he considered him more than able to accomplish them, leaving me part frightened and part impressed.

We soon fell silent, dedicating ourselves to our duties.

I browsed more than half of the books, but without getting the information I was looking for; only insights about the geography of the country, its economy, its military history, its traditions, and on the studies the Egyptians carried out in field of medicine, astronomy and architecture. Regarding the pharaohs, I found only some general information accompanied by a bare list of some already well known monarchs, and their meager biographies.

Sighing, I closed the last treatise, peeking at the text on which Mokuba was studying: I was rather surprised to see the theme dealt with by that text, and by the bizarre coincidence.

"Are you studying the Egyptian civilization?" I asked him "Tell me, Mokuba, does that book you brought with you have any information about pharaohs?"

"Of course. Why?"

I intended to check all the books in the house, and  the child’s one seemed new and updated, compared to those consulted by me till that moment.

"So, you surely know something about the pharaoh Atem."

"The pharaoh Atem? Never heard of him. " he admitted, frowning "Let me try to consult the table of dynasties." he proposed, going to the bottom of the thick tome "Hm, let's see: Amosi, Amenofi I, Amenmete ... Miss Walsh, there are no pharaohs bearing this name, here. Where did you hear about him?”

I remained silent, staring at that long and complete list of names, subdivided neatly into groups, by dynasty.

"Are you sure?"

Mokuba puffed out his cheeks, annoyed.

"This book was recently printed. It is up to date." he pointed "I have been studying Ancient Egypt for almost three weeks, I have already read all the books in this library and I have never heard of that pharaoh. If you do not believe me, why do not you ask for information at the British Museum? You will surely find experts who can give you answers, there." he muttered, returning to his homework.

At first I did not pay much attention to that suggestion, but I soon changed my mind.

Why not?

Lord Muto, after our morning session, was very busy with private matters and it did not seem appropriate to insist any further as the doctor had imposed him absolute rest the night before. Plus, I wanted to put my soul at peace once and for all about the existence of that pharaoh.

"Mokuba, what a wonderful idea!" I exclaimed, getting up "Would you like to accompany me? Stop studying with those books. Today we shall take a trip to the museum. It will be much more instructive for both."

"A trip? But I do not have my brother's permission. May I know why are you so obsessed with that pharaoh?"

I stopped halfway, turning toward him and pulling the watch out of my pocket.

"All right, I shall go alone. After all, it will be a rather boring visit, I will have to look among the showcases full of dusty vases, bizarre objects and old, wizened mummies."

At those words, the child interrupted the writing and looked up from the notebook.

It was not an everyday thing for a child to be proposed to approach such findings, after all.

"Real mummies?" he asked "A Millennium old?"

"Of course." I shrugged "All museums with an Egyptian wing have mummies. However, they smell terrible and sometimes they are so scary that visitors feel sick for weeks, so it would be better for me go alone. Mr. Kaiba would never forgive me if you had nightmar-"

"Christopher, prepare our coats. Miss Walsh and I are going out.” The child ordered to the passing valet, after having jumped off the chair.

"I shall take care to ask Lord Muto's permission, of course." I reassured the young man.

"I shall do it myself, Miss Walsh. You go and change your clothes." The boy urged me.

"Change my clothes?" But-!"

Mokuba gave me a sideways look and huffed, leaning over the handrail of the stair.

"A walking suit, Miss Walsh. Or at least the visiting one."

But I had changed for no more than two hours!

"Good God, I have to find a solution to this problem, before it leads me to madness." I muttered, walking reluctantly behind the little boy.

Mokuba obtained very easily the approval of visiting in my company the museum.

After the consensus was extended also to me by my patient himself, and after having turned to old advices from a decade before -given to me by Aunt Agatha- which wanted a lady's walking suit of neutral colors and not too bright, I finally went down to the ground floor.

Followed at a distance by Tea, we were finally able to walk towards the British Museum, under a shy sun that peeked out from behind the gray clouds, accompanying our steps through the park, along the way, to our destination.

 

 

 

  
The huge and majestic building put in serious difficulty our sense of orientation, but fortunately not Mokuba’s; after a quick consultation of the map, he took us straight to our destination: the Egyptian wing.

"A new wing will be inaugurated with an exhibition of artifacts at the beginning of the new year." Mokuba said, pointing to a hall, whose entrance was still forbidden to visitors.

To prevent entry, in fact, there was a thick red cordon, and a large sign informed the visitors of the future presentation of a new discovery, accompanied by a conference held by a famous archaeologist.

I cast a disinterested glance, and through the semi-darkness I could see nothing but a large reliquary at the bottom of the bare hall, covered with a tarpaulin.

"I wonder what they are going to exhibit." the child asked himself.

“Not other mummies, I hope." Tea whispered, shielding her nose with a handkerchief, because of a strong whiffs of mold coming from the neighboring wing. “Don’t you agree, Miss Walsh?"

"Well, it is not worse than the smell that Whitechapel releases during the summer."

“A mummy should not smell like this.” Mokuba intervened, “You know, their internal organs were removed and the bodies covered with mixtures of resins and oils. Over the millennia-long storage, most of the smells remaining would be expected to fly away.” he said, leaving us astonished “If a mummy smell bad, it means it has not been well preserved and has come into contact with humidity and bacteria.”

I allowed Mokuba to wander around the neighboring halls, accompanied by the maid; some experts were storing two mummies in their new cases, and the boy did not want to miss the show, with disgust of the poor maid who had to follow him.

As for me, I decided to go into the neighboring rooms, where more harmless and odorless artifacts like papyrus, jewelry, pottery, utensils and statuettes in wood, turquoise, quartz, lapis lazuli were exhibited, and where I would find some guide willing to enlighten me on the research that I was leading.

Groups of foreign tourists roamed the place, so I joined one of them and listened carefully the expert who was leading and entertaining them with legends and anecdotes about that ancient civilization.

When tourists finally were allowed to ask questions, I prepared myself, waiting for my turn.

"Why are all these figurines depicting cats?" asked a French lady by my side, pointing the cases before I could talk.

"Cats were animals sacred to the feline deity Bastet, madame. The ancient Egyptians thought that the latter were the protectors of the home and hearth, and that they took on a defensive role against diseases, injuries and spirits. For this reason we often find them depicted not only in talismans, but also in objects of common use." the guide explained in a nasal but well distinct voice.

“Spirits?”

Interested, I turned my attention to the feline statuettes, while the scene of the night of the aggression, where my cat had left the room interrupting Lord Muto's attack on me, came back to my mind.

I scribbled that information on a brochure supplied to me at the entrance to the museum, then I turned to the group, looking for the thin, bony man with a large mustache, who had just answered the tourist's question.

"Follow me, mesdames et messieurs, we are going to move to the pottery wing. This way, please."

"Excuse me."

I timidly raised my hand and my voice, drawing the attention of the group before it left the hall.

"Oui, mademoiselle?" he asked, clearly impatient to continue the visit "Do you have a question?"

"Yes, sir. I am looking for information about a pharaoh. The pharaoh Atem."

The gazes of the tourists moved from me to the old man, waiting for his answer, but the latter pushed his bald head forward and frowned, perplexed.

"The pharaoh who?"

"I am looking for information on the pharaoh Atem." I repeated. "Could you tell me something about him?"

The guide sighed, as if I had just pronounced a huge nonsense.

"Mademoiselle, you are surely referring to Atum," he corrected me "who was a god and not a pharaoh."

"No sir. The name is just Atem."

"Desolé, but you have been misinformed. A pharaoh with that name never existed. What can I tell you? Archeologists may have not discovered and dug him out yet."

There was a few laughs as a result of those last words; in a whirl of wool, velvet and taffeta, the group of ladies, followed by their elegant companions, slipped away from the wing, whispering.

The same reactions and answers came from three other experts whom I met during my visit.

"I wonder why I wanted to insist so far." I thought, resigned.

It had been obvious from the beginning that the supernatural track would not have lead me to anything; Lord Muto's symptoms were those of an identity disorder, and that strange language was seemingly a way his _new identity_ had used to express himself. It was quite useless to go on with conjectures about when and how an elusive spirit had come into contact with my patient, given that for several times that morning I had been denied by textbooks and experts on the existence of that monarch.

However, I had to admit that I found that visit very interesting: the Egyptians were an industrious and brilliant people, who had believed and placed great respect in their gods, and every small and large object in that wing was wrapped up in the aura of those who had made it with mastery.

Mokuba and Tea had not yet returned from the mummies room, so I decided to spend a few more minutes there, adjusting my eyes to the imposing and majestic basalt and granite statues, which alternated with the colonnade along the perimeter of the room, making me feel a strong sense of awe mixed with deference in front of those inexpressive eyes that, however, seemed to penetrate the soul of who stopped to looked at them.

They rested with the left foot forward, as if to take a step towards the center of the wing, and instinctively I found myself imitating them.

Although our traditions, beliefs and faiths had changed and deferred over the centuries, I found myself doing that same gesture as a kind of sign of respect; a feeling that one could not help but feel for that ancient civilization.

When I brought my left foot closer to my right one, and went up to the last glass case in the room, I started in noticing someone peering at me, from the opposite side of the glass case.

"You greeted the gods and showed them respect."

"What did you say?"

He was a foreign man, with an amber complexion. He wore a long and large tunic and a turban wrapped around his head. His face was framed by two large gold earrings and his eyes, as blue as the Mediterranean ocean, were marked by a thick line of black kajal that recalled those of the statues I had observed shortly before.

"Turning the foot towards a god or a king is a sign of respect and devotion to the latter." he explained.

I gasped, glanced immediately over my shoulder to see who the stranger was addressing, but when I realized I was the only one in front of that case and I turned to meet that gaze again, the man had vanished.

The whole wing was empty, and no tourists left. I was completely alone.

I blinked several times, sure that the reflections of the sun penetrating from the nearby windows were playing a strange trick on my sight, and that what I had seen was the reflection of a face coming from the statues, reflected on the glass.

"Do you have any questions to ask the gods?"

I barely restrained a cry of surprise when that voice returned to make its way close to me.

"Good God!" I stammered, frightened, bringing my hand to my chest and turning "I beg pardon. What?”

To my left the stranger had reappeared, in flesh and blood.

When he had approached, I could not have said it with certainty; I had not seen anyone, up to a moment before, coming in the same direction as me, neither from the right nor from the left.

I looked for the help of the guard at the entrances, but he must have moved away, as well, so I remained calm, turning back to the stranger, fearing he a charlatan who was preparing to tell me a bunch of stories and lies, in order to ask for compensation.

But he did not.

I must admit I was surprised by his way of being; he was so calm, and those placid blue eyes gave him something of  judicious and wise to his look, as if mysterious and unattainable knowledge, still secretly kept, were trapped in him.

"Questions for gods?" I repeated "No, I ... I do not think it is necessary to disturb the gods. I think I have already received enough negative answers for today.” I admitted.

He listened to my words, then shifted his unperturbed gaze to the case of the tablets, which reported painted hieroglyphics and scenes of fishing.

“A long time ago, the colors of these objects were lively and vibrant, just like those who created them with passion. The gods gave the men raw materials and the knowledge to work them; through them, the men, with trust, patience and devotion, progressed, transferring part of their soul into those objects, to repay the gods of what they were giving them. In this way, in daily life, there was, in front of the eyes of the generation that came, the testimony of how great the benevolence and generosity that the gods granted to men was."

I listened carefully to those words, deeply struck.

"Do you work for this museum, sir?"

"I make myself available to those who seek for answers." he said, placidly, shortly after. The slowly way with which he answered my questions made me nervous and uncomfortable.

We remained silent for an indefinite time, and before I could realize it, my lips parted, with the knowledge that the man would have remained there by my side, till I had exposed my doubts and the reason for my coming.

"The pharaoh Atem is the reason why I am here."

"The pharaoh Atem?"

For the first time, I saw the stranger's brow furrowing, though imperceptibly.

"I haven't heard this name for a long time."

I started, as my heart seemed to turn into a hammer in my chest.

"Pardon?" I exclaimed, surprised "So did he really exist? Or are you mocking me? The guides assured me that he does not-!”

"What men born yesterday might know about a person who really lived more than thousand years ago, but chose to lose track of his own existence?"

The stranger's blue eyes suddenly opened wide, staring at me with calm gravity, making me retreat in surprise.

"Let me warn you: the fact that you have met that name in your way is an omen of misfortunes. It shall lead you to complications."

I was stunned and confused. He did not blink and his big eyes continued to stare at me. He seemed in a sort of trance!

“Complications?” I repeated.

The stranger turned to me, and the key-shaped gold pendant he wore over his tunic clinked and caught the sunlight, releasing an annoying and unnatural glow that forced me to cover my eyes.

The ruby red eyes of my patient, the images of the aggression and the unknown language that rang in my ears. A sweet sound, like an exotic lullaby, played in my mind. When a deep darkness swallowed my body, I saw the same reflection I had seen in the corridor of the Doghouse the night of the aggression, swaying in an almost liquid darkness...

"The glow! The glow in the corridor!" I exclaimed.

An echoing voice in the distance, repeating the same words, fading slowly. It took me some time to put together the echoing phrase, to understand its meaning.

  
" _If this is what fate has in store for that young man, continue on this path, because the pharaoh has a mission to accomplish in the name of the gods._ "

  
After what seemed to me an indefinite time, I lowered my arms and looked up again in front of me.

The stranger had vanished from the room and surrounds, leaving me alone before I had the chance to run away from him.

In front of me, the display case containing the tablets and the talismans reflected my stunned and confused expression.

"Miss Walsh!"

It was the voices of the maid and the child to bring me back to reality.

"God in Heaven! Miss Walsh!” Tea called me, worried "Miss Walsh! What happened?"

I felt strange, as if something had frantically dug into my memories and had caused a great disarray.

Tea helped me to sit on the nearby bench, fanning me with my brochure, as I held my head against her shoulder and rearranged my thoughts; a few moments later, a glass of water was brought to me by one of the attendants.

When I was able to speak again, I immediately asked about that stranger, but it was assured to us that no foreigners who matched my description had entered or left that hall that morning.

The rumor that a person (precisely me) had complained of strange symptoms after visiting the Egyptian wing, spread, and in leaving the British Museum behind us, the voices already spoken of a curse brought by the mummies just laid in their cases.

I thought about the stranger's words all the way back, feeling closer to Lord Muto than ever. Was I a victim of hallucinations, as well?

I could not help but wonder what the future would hold for us from now on.

Had I therefore done well not to reject the hypothesis that this pharaoh could really have existed after what I witnessed? Did I want to believe in his existence, following the words of that enigmatic man? If I had done it, how should I have faced that case from now on?

"Have you discovered anything about that pharaoh?" Mokuba asked me.

"Apparently I fell victim to a mistake." I merely answered.

"I see. However, the curator of the museum was kind enough to allow me to witness the deposition of those new mummies. You know, they belonged to two Egyptian princesses of my age."

"Did you talk to the curator?" I asked, amazed "You did not bother him during his work, I hope."

"Of course not. He told me that I am qualified for an archaeologist career in the future."

  
We came back an hour later, in the late afternoon.

Mokuba had insisted on taking a carriage, given my current state, but after a similar experience there was nothing better than a long walk in the open air, to fully recover and calm my nerves.

The air had become colder and sharper, as we left behind the pressing darkness of the evening, which was already erasing the faded orange rays of the sun and the slender, surreal shadows of passers-by and buildings from the pavements.

When we crossed the threshold, we met Mr. Crawford.

He was leaving his coat and his top hat to the butler, struggling to find words that were adequate enough to describe him the extent of the disaster he had witnessed that morning.

Mr. Kaiba, he informed us, had not returned with him.

"I proposed him to stop for lunch at the club to catch up with the morning events, but he didn't want to know. He was like a runaway horse, my word! He run straight to Scotland Yard headquarter to reach Mr. Taylor, the current director of the bank, to consult him and the governor about the measures to be implemented following this disaster. I shall explain everything to you all when we are joined by Your Grace and Lord Muto. Miss Walsh, tell me rather," he changed the subject, lowering his voice as we walked into the living room, making sure no one was listening to us “Have you succeeded in your intent this morning?"

I told him everything, waiting for the family to join us.

"You did... What ?!" the man repeated, astonished, when I revealed to him that I had managed to get hold of Mr. Kaiba's letter, hypnotizing the butler.

"I could not think anything else, sir. The circumstances were so favorable; I limited myself to supporting the situation to bring it to our advantage."

“Miss Walsh, how did you do it?” the man asked me “I mean, I still cannot believe-!”

"Leading him to hypnotic trance was very easy. Mr. Roland lacked reactivity due to missed hours of sleep, and once I understood this I also realized that it would have been very easy to leverage his unconscious by exploiting his desire for rest, and amplifying it."

The American stared at me with wide eyes, so I coughed, deciding to simplify the explanation.

I was about to start talking again, when, raising a hand, I brought it to my mouth and stifled a yawn.

I spoke a few words, but slowed by a second and then a third small and discreet yawn, until a few minutes later, finally, I saw the man, sitting in front of me, letting himself go and bring a hand to his mouth as well.

"You just yawned, sir." I pointed out.

"You did it as well, Miss Walsh." he replied, blinking in surprise "You infected me."

"It is true, sir. Understood?"

The man remained silent for a few moments, staring at me dazed, then either his brown eyes lit up, as surprised as those of a child.

"Ah! You have induced me to yawn! As if by magic!"

I chuckled.

"Exactly, but certainly not using magic, sir. This little demonstration of mine would not have worked if you had been fresh and rested, but realizing that for you too it must have been a tiring day, and playing on signals that your body sent me, I realized that I would be able to bring you to externalize this state of yours, inducing yawning. A good hypnotist can make the most of these conditions and prolong them for as long as necessary."

"Giosafat! For sure!" the American nodded, amazed and enthusiastic "Miss Walsh, this is incredible! The fact that it's not about magic makes this all the more extraordinary!"

"What about the contents of the letter?" he asked me, later, when we returned to the issue.

"A few lines, actually. A medical consultation, as Mr. Kaiba had previously announced to Mr. Roland. He turned to John Seward."

"Seward?" the businessman repeated, "Do you know this person?"

“Yes, sir. He is the director of an asylum in Carfax. It is fortunate that this letter was not transmitted. If Dr. Seward had presented himself here, he certainly would have recognized me. You know, he was a collaborator and a huge friend of my father.”

“I see.” he nodded, with an almost unsettling seriousness that was uncommon to see in his bright eyes "At least, today we have gained precious time. Do you think it is better to inform Lord Muto about Kaiba-boy’s initiative?"

"Not today, sir." I answered, hearing footsteps coming down the stairs "Lord Muto already has enough concerns at this time."

  
When we reached His Grace and his nephews for dinner, the old man gave the categorical order not to refer to the bank's affair, except after meals.

But fleeing, albeit briefly, the events that had involved the bank of Mr. Kaiba did not help to improve the mood in the dining room, since, having failed miserably the usual exchange of pleasantries, Mr. Crawford and I were made aware of another, in my opinion, catastrophe: the family would have taken part in the New Year’s Eve Ball, by mutual agreement.

"Why this sudden change of mind, my lord?" I asked, worried.

"My friend, do you consider it really necessary after what happened last night?" asked Mr. Crawford, discreetly.

"I am afraid it is, Pegasus. This morning I received a letter from Siegfried. He informed me that he came to know that yesterday night, someone recognized our valet urgently run to the doctor and bringing him to us. Siegfried was very worried, and asked for reassurance about my health." the young man replied.

"Someone seems to have decided to let the whole capital know about it." sighed Lord Yugi.

"Even to-day, after the usual hearings in the Chamber, I was hit by voices of all kinds. This morning it seemed to me to be in a parlor of wives and not in the House of Lords!" His Grace grumbled, nervously squeezing his napkin between his pudgy fingers.

“Because of my recent absences, many of those politicians have come forward stating that if this is the interest I wanted to show for our country’s issues, at this point I would have done better to take a step aside and give up, taking the place of my grandfather in the Chamber, the next year.”

At the end of that long day, His Grace told us, when the usual debates had taken place, on his way back home a member of the opposition's supporters had approached him, expressing regret for the _situation_ of Lord Muto.

"That snake told me of some rumors that would concern Yami’s state of health.” the Earl muttered, scornfully  “He said it seemed strange to him that my nephew had not shown up during formal ceremonies for a long time, and since he had decided to spend the whole year in the city -perhaps in order to have medical specialists closer?- it gave him the thought that my nephew was suffering from a serious disorder that is forcing him to almost total confinement."

Which was partly true, I could not help thinking, but the thought that strangers were feeding such serious accusations was unbelievable.

We were petrified.

"How much I wanted to punch those snakes!”

“Grandfather, please.” Lord Muto intervened.

“You were not there, if only you had seen! Till the end of the day I did nothing but listen to them say ‘ _Your Grace, turn this voice about your nephew, and then this other one..! Is it the truth?_ ’ Good! I told them, keep listening to the voices as Joan of Arc did! Who knows if your destinies will be parallel despite four hundred years separating you."

The old man had dismissed the gossips with that answer, and although it was enough to close the matter for one day, the issue would continue to resurface till the leading members of London high society had witnessed the return of my patient.

"This is the reason, Miss Walsh. I have to take part in the New Year’s Eve Ball at all costs, and stop those rumors before the situation degenerates and my place in the House of Lords is officially questioned."

I had no strength to reply, and I merely nodded and accepted his decision.

It was risky. If something went wrong, my patient, his future and his place in the Chamber would have been compromised anyway.

  
Since Mr. Kaiba had sent us a note, announcing that he would not be returning till late night, His Grace urged the American to update us on the latest news, after dinner.

"Tell us about the assault on the bank, Mr. Crawford.” he grumbled.

"Of course, Your Grace." the man nodded, gladly accepting a glass of liquor from the butler, then beginning to tell us all the events of that morning spent at the bank "...so, the facade of the building no longer exists, the whole vault has been emptied of its contents, and our criminal evaporated with the loot."

I started, but it was Lord Yugi, sitting at the piano next to his brother, to precede me.

"How, Mr. Crawford? Do you mean to say that the crime was organized and performed by one man?" he asked, incredulous as I was.

"That's right. A bizarre hieroglyphic message was found in the vault."

"Hieroglyphics?"

I looked at him goggled-eyed.

First the hallucinations of my patient on that mysterious pharaoh, then Mokuba, engaged in research on that ancient civilization, followed by the bizarre foreigner I met at the museum… Now, even the person responsible of that shot left strange messages in hieroglyphics.

That constant return of references to the Egyptian civilization was beginning to make me shudder!

"Here, take a look: I copied the message before leaving the building.” Mr. Crawford said, taking his agenda out of the inside pocket of his tailcoat, and placing it on the table in front of us.

We all leaned toward it, examining it, even though our ignorance was more than obvious; we saw nothing but birds, arms, lines and colorful eyes that seemed to scrutinize us in turn.

"What does it say, Mr. Crawford?" Lord Yugi asked, arching his dark eyebrows.

" _For a new and profitable start._ "

Taken from my thoughts, I realized only several seconds later the other occupants of the room who had uttered those words and, looking up, I noticed that all the shocked faces were converging on my patient.

"But… Yami!" exclaimed Lord Yugi, breaking the silence that had come to create "Since when you can read hieroglyphics?"

The young lord fell silent, meeting my eyes for a moment, disoriented.

"Maybe he just read the translation." His Grace said.

The American shook his head.

"I didn’t report the translation, Your Grace. I don't need it, you know it."

I grew pale, giving the American a look that asked for clarification about his last statement, but after realizing the still palpable tension in the room, I roused myself, trying to divert attention from my patient.

"Does our criminal have a name?" I asked, handing back the agenda to Mr. Crawford, who threw me a gaze of gratitude.

"Only one person may have caused such a disaster."

Lord Muto, who had shut himself in a dark silence, seemed to rouse himself, and immediately turned his attention to the businessman.

"Pegasus, won't it-?"

"Bakura." Lord Yugi whispered in a faint voice.

I exchanged a look with Mr. Crawford, who raised his eyebrows, evidently as obscure as I was about those strange reactions.

The faces of the two brothers, in fact, had become two wax masks.

"Is there anything we should be aware of?" the American asked discreetly.

"It is a terrible story.” His Grace intervened, putting down his glass of sherry, nervously.

"Do you know that criminal personally?"

The Earl of Hereford cast a glance at the two nephew.

"Yami."

"Yes, grandfather?"

"Accompany your brother to bed. He does not seem to feel well."

Without objecting, the young lord seemed willing to do what his grandfather had ordered, and soon Lord Yugi and he left the music room, wishing us goodnight.

Passing a hand through his gray hair, His Grace asked me the permission to light his pipe and, shortly afterwards, large rings of smoke began to rise towards the ceiling.

"A horrible, horrible story." the man repeated several times, looking for the right words "That man, Bakura, was the dearest friend of my nephews."

"What?" Mr. Crawford and I exclaimed, shocked.

"I saw him grow together with my boys between games and laughter. His parents were the dearest friends we had ever had, and they lived in the villa at the beginning of the avenue. The one that is still uninhabited. The boy’s name is Ryou Bakura and at the time he was a sickly, frail and very sensitive child, always kind to others and very well mannered." he told with nostalgia, as if the memories of those happy times were still flowing in front of his eyes.

"Then what happened to him? Why did he suddenly change?" I asked.

"If only I knew it, my dear. His father was a member of the House of Commons, but he had a keen sense of archeology: he often traveled around the world, and one day he returned home for the child's tenth birthday. I remember that it was within a few weeks starting from that precise event, that the boy began to change radically. The family isolated themselves from everything and everyone, neither I nor my nephews were able to understand what was happening, and later… that nasty affair took place in their house."

“Nasty affair?” repeated the American, tense "You mean-?"

The amethyst gaze of the man turned to me.

“Miss Walsh, these are not stories for ladies. Are you sure you want to hear till the end?”

I reassured him with a glance.

“Of course, Your Grace. Please, go ahead.”

“Well, that’s what happened: Ryou's parents and all the servants were found without life inside the house; as for the boy, he seemed to have vanished into thin air. Scotland Yard and all us searched for him everywhere, fearing that he had been kidnapped by the criminal who killed his family.” he explained “Till one day, the whole island began to read about him through the newspapers. Bakura had become one of the most sought after and ruthless criminals on the whole Europe. What was worse, soon he declared himself the assassin of his own family: his father, his mother, his twin sister and all the servitude.”

“Good God.”

I was frozen by that story.

A shiver ran down my spine, making goose bumps come up.

A similar and radical change in a child so sensitive and good! Could he really have changed so suddenly, so much so as to make a crime like that?

And now that dangerous criminal was on the loose in our city.

"It was a shock to Yugi and Yami. They did not want to believe that their dearest friend had become such a criminal." the Earl said.

"I do not doubt it." I whispered, shuddering "It must have been terrible for all of you. However, how is it possible that this man succeeded in such an undertaking?"

The old man frowned.

"Personally, I prefer not to ask myself this question. In time his image was compared to that of a demon descended to earth; who knows, over time he would have formed a gang of mad criminals as much as he is, ready to follow him and indulge his sick mind. "

  
Mr. Kaiba returned home shortly after midnight, under the umpteenth plentiful snowfall that had kept London in check for days.

He abandoned his coat in the arms of the butler, and from him he received the fictitious letter; the man’s gaze swiftly flow over the few lines written on it, which informed him of the temporary absence of Dr. Seward from Carfax, but reassured him on his return in a few days.

After folding the communication, Mr. Kaiba put the envelope back in the pocket of his jacket, dismissing the attendant and refusing the hot meal that the cook had set aside for his arrival.

"I am going to leave early tomorrow, Roland. Have breakfast ready by five."

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba. It shall be done." said the butler, watching him going up the stairs "Sir, may I ask you if there is any good news?"

"You see, Roland," the businessman revealed to him, with a hint of clear satisfaction in his voice "What distinguishes me from that bunch of high-sounding titles out there is that at the first sign of disaster, they flee with their tails between the legs, while I, reborn as the phoenix, find fertile ground to bring the situation to my advantage."

"I see. I congratulate you, sir."

Mr. Kaiba was about to head his bedroom, when the lights still coming from the half-open door of Lord Muto's room caught his attention.

He stopped in front of the door and opened it just enough to looking for its occupant, finding him lazily lying on the small sofa at the foot of the bed, busy in reading some letters; a live fire still burned in the fireplace, and the welcoming warmth, accompanied by the pleasant smell of lotus that hovered in the bedroom, held the man in a reassuring embrace.

The low and restrained voice of Lord Muto invited him to enter, and when he looked up at him, the young lord sensed that something positive had happened, despite that day's prelude had presented itself as one of the most nefarious of those last weeks.

"Welcome back."

"Are you really so busy with those missives or were you looking for an excuse to stay up waiting for me?"

The cardinal red of the wallpaper, of the curtains, of the drapery of the canopy bed lost their liveliness, deepen, when Lord Muto lowered the intensity of the flame of the two wall lamps, throwing the room into an intimate semi-darkness; only the lit fireplace and a candelabra placed on the nearby table were left to provide adequate lighting.

"Pegasus told us everything, but I was pretty sure you would come back carrying good news."

"Hm. I would have preferred things to have gone differently," admitted Mr. Kaiba, loosening his ascot tie with a quick gesture of his fingers, and freeing himself from the suit jacket, leaving it on the bed "but recently it seems that I was not the only one to premeditate a return in style."

As he sat on the small armchair next the fire, the businessman noticed the little table above which was placed a chessboard and its pieces still scattered among the black and white squares.

How long had they interrupted that game? Mr. Kaiba did not even remember it anymore. It had seemed like years since he and his partner had managed to sit to challenge each other.

"Shall we end it?" Lord Muto asked, approaching and sliding one of the black pawns forward one square.

Mr. Kaiba's lips bent into a grin, and his slender fingers moved to the white horse, who placed towards the outer side of the board.

"I do not think you are in the best conditions to hope for a quick end of the game." he observed, pointing to the position taken by the white pieces against the black ones.

Lord Muto frowned, moving one of the two black bishops left on the field, then he let himself go on the backrest of the chair, returning to observe the opponent.

"So, Mr. Kaiba, is it really Bakura?"

"Everyone seems to be convinced of it, after having seen that strange message. In any case, it shall be my concern to deal with him personally, as soon as the reconstruction plans for the façade will be approved and I will have made arrangements with the other banks to stabilize the current situation." the man answered, concentrating on his next move "With what courage that criminal allowed himself to do such a thing... Razing my bank to the ground is like taking off a piece of my flesh. If he thinks it ends here, he is wrong."

"Finding Bakura is police work," the noble reminded him "That man is not an ordinary criminal."

"Precisely for this reason I do not expect that Trudge obtains satisfactory results. It will be a miracle if he can find the stolen goods." Mr. Kaiba replied pragmatically. “At least, this unexpected turn of events managed to make a clean sweep of those who opposed to Taylor’s temporary position and to my return as director in a couple of weeks.” the businessman said, smiling in a mocking manner “The prospect of the responsibilities that they would have been take in front of the whole city was enough to make them disappeared.” 

“Well, not everyone is able to deal with this kind of catastrophe.” Lord Muto shrugged “A very intense period awaits for you, from now on.”

“Hm. I shall face all this as best as I have always done,” in the soft light of the candle, the deep blue eyes of Mr. Kaiba darted full of ferocity and determination “since now that I got rid of those racketeers and turncoats, I can finally rebuild that bank on the ashes of my father’s and have full freedom in my actions.”

"You always fall on your feet, don’t you?"  Lord Muto observed, leaning forward and raising the second black bishop.

Mr. Kaiba's lips showed a triumphant sneer.

"Always."

The slight bump of a glass counter that spilled on the table with a rattle, startled him.

After seeing the lips of Lord Muto curl into a smirk, Mr. Kaiba turned his attention to the chessboard, where the black bishop had just defeated the king.

"Boden's Mate." the businessman hissed, recognizing the pattern of play and looking away, annoyed.

"Would you like to drink something, Mr. Kaiba?"

"To forget the defeat?"

"To toast your return to the management of the bank."

Mr. Kaiba gave his partner a look of appreciation, nodding.

While the young lord poured the whiskey, and the pleasant flow of that amber liquid in the crystal of the glasses reached his ears like a mermaid song, the man's gaze lingered on him.

He had completely recovered energy and lucidity, following the events of the past night, and yet, precisely because of this unpredictability, Mr. Kaiba could not find peace: that alternation of memory leaks, unexplainable and incomprehensible acts on the part of the partner, and then the sudden return to strength when it was least expected, made it impossible to understand what was happening to the boy, and when those symptoms would be recurred.

His sapphire eyes wandered, thoughtful, to then meet a paper sheet next to the chessboard on the table.

“Yami.”

“Yes?”

While the latter reached him, holding out the glass of liquor and taking place, Mr. Kaiba raised the sheet that carried the affirmative answer to the family's participation in the New Year’s Eve Ball, in front of him.

"I have to go back to show myself in public." the young lord explained, calmly, making the liquor ripple inside his own glass "I think the Ball is the favorable occasion to do it."

"In the condition you are in? Have you considered the possible consequences?"

"Just because I thought about it, I have to do it. My right to enter the House of Lords is at stake."

"Nonsense. Hurrying your return without the reassurance of a specialist on what afflicts you in recent times is a leap into the void. If something happens to you that night, it will not provide reassurance to those around you. You will only give them confirmation of what they are already gossiping about."

Lord Muto frowned, threw back the last sip of whiskey, and set the empty glass.

"Do you talk to me about jumping into the void, when you intend to personally deal with a criminal murderer?" he reminded him "You are willing to do the impossible for what you believe in, Kaiba, and so do I too. You know how important this place in Parliament is to me. I do not intend to step back."

"You are doing it for your grandfather, aren’t you?"

A tense silence fell in the room.

Mr. Kaiba grinned, annoyed, and got up from the chair, resuming the word.

"Hm. I wonder what will be the next move to carry on the good name of the family." he asked, scornful, "Will you marry the first woman they will soon put in front of you?"

The noble looked away from his companion, concealing his gaze, turning it towards the crackling flames in the fireplace.

“So, was that what you wanted to get to?” he asked him, in an imperceptible whisper.

That reaction made Mr. Kaiba even more furious.

The strong desire Lord Muto had to protect his family had always been a reason of clash between the two.

“I just would like to know where your choices end and where the decisions other’s want to make for you start. That is all.” he hissed “However, since we are talking about it, listen to me: I can also accept your hypothetical marriage to someone else. After all, it would be nothing more than a contract between two families in front of a God who I never trusted in.”

Those words struck Lord Muto like a dagger straight into his heart, and finally he turned his pale face toward the man, looking at him, muddled.

The businessman had his back to him, looking out the French window, watching the snow falling and being swallowed up in the deep inky darkness, outside.

“However,” he continued in a low, deep and resolute voice “I could accept your choices, like that of marriage, if only the decision came from you and not from a choice dictated by the influence that the affection for your family leads you to make. Do I make myself clear enough, Yami?”

Mr. Kaiba was aware of how much those words could hurt his companion, but he could not keep those thoughts inside any longer: his partner and the path they faced so far were too important to him, and he deserved the most complete sincerity from his part.

“Kaiba.”

Ever since they had known each other, their way had been uphill, studded with events they had been able to cope with, despite the diversity of the world in which each had been raised and educated; time, with its slow passing, had enabled them to coexist. Their surprisingly similar minds had opened, thirsting for what they had to teach and learning from each other, along the path that seemed to want to lead them away, above the world and the society around them, and the people who were part of it.

They had hindered, faced, known, accepted and respected, they knew how to become enemies but also allies, they knew how to doubt each other's certainties to give themselves new ones.

Time and challenges had made their souls belonged to each other, even before the two men could both admit it to themselves, and Mr. Kaiba would never have accepted to look at that noble -the only one who knew how to stand up to him- renounce being the brilliant person and the extraordinary strength of mind he had known, and to witness his decline, yielding to his family and the society rules, just to reach the altar next to an ordinary lady, a person who did not deserve him, with whom he had never shared anything and who would never have understood or wanted to understand him completely…

"Kaiba."

The man winced, dismissing those thoughts, turning to his partner.

Lord Muto had stopped in front of him, the reflections of the orange twilight flames in his amethyst eyes, the shadows these generated that stretched over part of his body, like a stain of black ink.

"I would not marry a woman that someone else chosen even if were God in person to impose her to me. The same goes for all the choices I have made so far and all those that will affect my private life in the future." he said, firmly “However, there will be times in which I will put my family and my friends first… as you would do for Mokuba. As you already did for me, as well.” Lord Muto reminded him, calmly, pushing aside the open collar of the man’s blouse and finding again under the fabric the small, reddish round scar a few inches below his collarbone “Do not pretend not to have a heart in front of me, Mr. Kaiba."

The latter emitted a soft grumble, while the young lord slightly rose on his bare feet, kissing that scar.

The arms of Mr. Kaiba went down to surround the partner’s waist; the gesture partly lifted the soft fabric of the nightgown that the young lord wore and the hem grazed his thighs, caressing them, while the man drew the partner closer to him.

They kissed under the lively crackle of the red flames, before separating for the night.

 

 

 **Continue.**  
**(Next chapter up Friday May 17th)**


	8. The Puzzle from Egypt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The characters in this story belong to Kazuki Takahashi.  
> -During the reading you might find some numbers related to the footnotes at the end of the chapter, in order to explain customs and traditions, way of saying and more about this peculiar era.  
> -Please, mind that the story is set in the second half of the 19th century: references of psychological, neurological and biological nature are relevant to that historical period; the way of acting and thinking of the characters, customs, and ideals of the Victorian era do not necessarily reflect mine.  
> -If you have any advice of opinion to share with me, feel free to do it! I’ll be happy to receive it!

**-Chapter 8: The Puzzle from Egypt-**

 

  
Two patrol squads from Scotland Yard met whilst on watch along the dirt roads of the London countryside; the pace of their horses muffled by the layer of snow that had accumulated along the paths during the night.

"Is there any news?" Asked the patrol leader.

"No, sir. The inhabitants of the farms a few miles away reported no suspicious movement."

The officer raised a hand to his wet mustache and pushed away the sleet that had settled on it; a puff of steam rose from his mouth as he spoke again.

"He cannot have disappeared into thin air with such a quantity of stolen goods. We resume our research by moving to the South." He proposed “The rest of the patrol heads back to the port areas.”

“What about the North area of the Thames, sir?”

"The River Police is already working there.”

The man spurred his black horse, and with his team he galloped off, vanishing into the darkness of the night.

"Let's move.” The second patrol leader ordered." Hey, Kingsley, did you hear that? "

One of the policemen had turned around, aiming at an area of the snowy expanse, where an old crooked fence soared from the snow with his back to a wasteland and a bare grove.

"How strange." He said, taking off his helmet and scratching his head, puzzled "I was almost certain that the old Blackwood farm was in this area. Right there, on the ground behind that fence."

"It is probable that it was demolished. This piece of land will soon be sold to build new factories,” said the patrol leader, after having thrown a skeptical look at the point indicated by the subordinate," Let's go now. We must report to chief Trudge by dawn."

"Yes, sir."

One by one, the gendarmes spurred the huffing and impatient horses, disappearing on the horizon, along the whitewashed hills that towered like ghosts in the gloomy darkness.

A throaty laugh mingled with the breath of the wind, and something close to the fence moved, right on that empty plot of land; at first a grating creak could be heard, accompanied later by a slow crawling on the snowy ground.

There, where before there was nothing but an expanse of neglected land bounded by a grove perched on small hills, towered an imposing shadow with a demon face, an impressive bull neck and bulky shoulders; its massive coils were wrapped around something, and when they loosened, an old farmhouse appeared between them.

“Idiots. Diabound, let’s go."

A figure came down from the demon's shoulders and entered the window; the creature’s body, covered by pitch-black scales, dissolved into a dark and dense fog that filtered through every corner of the building, taking on consistency behind the man.

"What a nostalgia," said the latter, grinning amused. "It wouldn’t be the dear old London without the incapable of Scotland Yard to patrol it."

A guttural gurgling came from Diabound's throat.

The thief Bakura raised an eye-catching gold pendant that he wore about his neck, and the sharp jewels hanging around the circumference of the object rattled ominously under his pale eyes.

"So, it seems that what we're looking for is around here.”

How many years had elapsed since the criminal’s escape from that country?

He was only a child, but no less determined to achieve his goal; the body that housed him would soon grow up, and waiting for this to happen, before getting rid of the family of his host, he forced the father to reveal him where he had come into possession of the Millennium Ring he was now wearing.

The stele that guarded it together with its twins was in fact still in Egypt when the father stole the object, but once the thief arrived in the country that gave him birth almost three thousand years earlier, he discovered that the traces of the ancient stele had been lost a few weeks after its discovery. Looted by other tomb robbers and sold to rich men, to foreigners, or stolen and protected by guardian families, or perhaps destroyed…

The possibilities were many.

In those last years, Bakura and Diabound had traveled the world from West to East, and followed all the possible traces and information obtained thanks to those whose - through the centuries- had continued to make the sale of those treasures their job; only a few months before, the thief had then learned that in addition to the Ring, another object had also been stolen and never found, years before: the Millennium Puzzle.

The traces of the stele and the Puzzle had been lost in England, where Bakura had immediately returned.

"We shall resume the research from here, where it all began." the man said, turning to the creature "The information was correct, this time; in addition to my pendant, the Puzzle has been stolen. I feel it; since we came back here, the Ring has started to react to its twin, albeit weakly. Although it is not clear to me why only now and not years ago... But it doesn't matter. We must find it. "

Bakura dropped the pendant on his chest.

"The voices where wrong. We found no trace of the ancient stele in the museums of the country, nor of the Puzzle in the vaults of the Central Bank. So, that object came here illegally. In recent years the illicit traffic of Egyptian-made materials has become very fashionable, especially in this country. If it’s true that the ancient stone and the Puzzle are in this city, it’s possible that they are in private possession.  They probably ended up in possession of persons at the time related to the family. We must find them, and wherever they are, with them, we will find what we’re looking for.” So said, the thief turned his back to the demon, rising and biting a piece of bread while he leaned over a copy of the Daily Telegraph he had opened on the table “I’ll take care of it personally. In the meanwhile, Diabound, return into the Ring and resume searching in the maze. And try not to come back empty-handed again."

  
The ancient artifact, in the shape of an inverted pyramid, lay inside a costume jewelry box lined with black velvet, which further enhanced the splendor of its material and details.

I had seen it out of the corner of my eye the night I entered Lord Muto's bedroom, but without paying too much attention: having entered the room rather hastily, searching for the nobleman, I had in fact mistaken it for a heap of jewels spilled between the quilts on the ground. Before that, I had glimpsed the unmistakable golden reflections in the darkness of the corridor, where I later met my patient and risked aggression.

Clues and details that my mind had neglected and which were now slowly becoming clearer, brought back to the surface when I noticed the key-shaped pendant that the stranger at the museum wore over his tunic, and that (I only realized now that I had in front of me) it recalled in an extraordinary way the ancient object possessed by my patient, as if that key and that pyramidal artifact had been created together in the same period, by the same artist, and with the same care, technique and material.

The role of that mysterious stranger in that story was still unclear to me, but after our meeting and his odd words, thoughts, hypotheses, clues were slowly finding a clearer place, leading me far from the first diagnosis formulated.

After visiting the museum, in fact, I was more and more convinced that there was a connection between the stranger, his key, Lord Muto and his ancient artifact. All that strange chain of events seemed to lead us towards the resolution of a mystery hidden behind one of the most enigmatic and ancient civilizations that existed up to now.

That was exactly what I wanted to discuss with Lord Muto and Mr. Crawford that morning.

Would they ever understood and accepted what I was willing to reveal to them? I was not sure. If I wanted to prove to them, and even to the most skeptical part of myself, that it was time to set aside my previous identity disorder diagnosis, I should have done better than limit myself to giving explanations.

I had to bring before them facts, not doubts and uncertainties, or they would have mistaken me for an unreliable visionary.

Taking courage, therefore, that morning I had decided to ask Lord Muto if his family possessed Egyptian-made objects, and he, shortly afterwards, came to the library with that very object.

"This is the only artifact from Egypt that our family owns."

"Absolutely extraordinary." Observed Mr. Crawford, amazed "May I, my friend?"

Lord Muto allowed the man to examine the object, so the latter began to carefully study every single detail of it with the scrupulousness of an expert and the curiosity and the enthusiasm of a child.

I looked at the golden surface of the pyramid, crossed by grooves; on one of the four faces there was a motif recalling the udjat, the mystical eye of Horus, which with the clouds coming and going outside, caught the rays of the sun and spread the golden reflections on the walls of library, creating plays of light that left us spellbound.

"May I know how you got it, my lord?" I asked him.

"It is a gift from my brother. He found it in the attic, but we do not know exactly how it got here. Grandfather could not tell us anything.” The nobleman explained to us "I only know that it took to Yugi a couple of years to put it back together. "

"Put it back together?" I repeated, surprised.

"In fact, these signs that go through it ... like a puzzle!" Mr. Crawford deduced passing his fingers over the tiny lines that ran along the pyramid.

"A very complex puzzle, according to Yugi.” Lord Muto nodded “But he is a genius for this kind of puzzles and brain teasers, and he patiently managed to complete it in secret. He gave it to me the past month as present for my birthday."

I frowned at that information.

"A month ago…? Just when the symptoms has started." I thought, looking up at the young man, "Might a family member have provided it? Perhaps the Viscount?"

"My father knew nothing about it.” He explained "So, Miss Walsh? May I know why you asked me to show you this artifact? "

"With your consent, today I would like to try a brief hypnosis session." I said "Something fast and not too demanding. I need to understand if you are a subject predisposed to this type of therapy. Also, " I added, pushing the artifact slightly towards him "If possible, I would ask you to wear this."

The two men, sitting opposite me, exchanged puzzled glances.

"I beg pardon, Miss Walsh. I do not understand…"

A hint of apprehension crossed the nobleman's twilight gaze.

“Do not worry, my lord. I am just going to use it as a smokescreen.” I explained.

He nodded, still perplexed; he got up from the table and, lifting the pendant and put it on, he took a seat on an armchair that I pointed out to him.

Despite the apprehension, I had decided -in those first phases- to treat the case exactly as an identity disorder, thus acting with the aim of bringing the second identity of the young lord out; my hope was that the closeness to that object would allow the spirit to manifest itself through the body of Lord Muto, in front of us, in order to create, if possible, a contact with it in the future.

In the meantime, Mr. Crawford made sure that there was no one outside the library, nor on the ground floor, and then discreetly closing the sliding doors behind him and taking his seat aside, near the fireplace, ready for any eventuality.

"Do we run the risk of being disturbed?"

"We don’t, Miss Walsh. My grandfather came out this morning to go to the club, my brother is busy with the drawing lesson till eleven, and this morning I insisted that Mokuba also take part in it." Lord Muto informed me "The servants shall not go upstairs unless not be recalled."

"I asked Roland to run some errands on my own. He won't come back before lunch," Mr. Crawford whispered, giving me a knowing look.

"Very well.” I nodded, taking place in front of the noble and lifting the artifact from his chest; I placed it between us, making the reverberations overlap my face.

Lord Muto's eyes rose towards it, instinctively following the pyramid’s oscillating movements, while I began to talk to him, explaining in detail what my intentions and goals would be during that first session.

Obviously I avoided making him aware of my second purpose, but the awareness of knowing in advance what I would do helped him to relax, to feel, at an unconscious level, less ‘threatened’.

He was used to managing and having everything under control, including emotions and feelings, and this could have made the achievement of the state of trance more complex, if in him the conviction of losing control had made its way; I did everything I could to give him reassurance, occasionally suggesting him some tricks to help him better to leave the tension behind.

"Let yourself go against the back of the chair if you wish. Assume any kind of position will allow you to relax to the fullest. There is no hurry." I reassured him, continuing to swing the puzzle in front of his eyes.

After ten, long minutes and several attempts, finally my patient’s body began to give signs of relaxation, the eyelids were already beating at a slower, though steady pace.

"Focus on your breathing, follow the rhythm. Good. More and more regular, slow and deep." I suggested to him, "When you shall feel ready, close your eyes completely. It shall help you relax even more."

The young man's lips, slightly parted, released another light breath, and his eyelids dropped slowly, concealing the amethyst-colored irises.

"Now that your eyelids are well closed, impossible to open, keep listening to my voice..."

I gently lowered the golden pendant and rested it against his chest again, beginning to count; a first trance had been reached in a few seconds.

Given that first success, I therefore decided to extend that state by a few minutes to let me tell again about the pharaoh Atem, in waiting of a sign from the spirit.

Lord Muto's mind had kept every detail, and so, induced to trance, he brought to the surface even more details than he had listed the first time.

With my words and with extreme caution, from time to time, I encouraged him to continue, asking him questions when I thought it necessary. I had to admit that his narrative remained extremely detailed and satisfying to hear.

He was able to communicate with extreme precision the tactile, visual and olfactory sensations, from the most pleasant to the most unpleasant; he described not only Seth, a character to whom the pharaoh seemed particularly tied, but around that scene the echoes of other voices, belonging to perhaps other officials at his service, surfaced in his memory, and someone screamed angry in the distance; from the excitement of how he described the scene, it seemed the exact moment when the young monarch had been mortally wounded.

I asked Lord Muto if he was wearing jewels, and he nodded, adding that the golden pendant rested on the soft linen of the tunic in which the body of the young monarch was wrapped; then, he frowned and claimed to feel annoyed by away grains of sand lifted by the wind from the desert, which attacked his wound mixing with his blood.

I was thrilled to see that he had come of his own accord to that part, but unfortunately, reached that point, it began to be complex to extract information about why he was injured and who was responsible for it...

I had to give up. The spirit had not properly shown itself as I had hoped, and a sort of bizarre hostility had taken hold of my patient; not even assuring him that by telling me everything he could have felt better, he mentioned a word.

"Bizarre. Till recently, he was describing everything in extreme detail." I thought.

In spite of myself, I decided to conclude the first session. After all, I had succeeded in the main aim of bringing him to a hypnotic trance and letting him tell a satisfying number of events.

We also came to discover that Lord Muto’s artifact and the one worn by the pharaoh were the same object, and having helped myself with the latter to provoke the trance had borne good results.

Perhaps later on I would have been able to get more information from the young lord and to have confirmation of the existence of that spirit in his body.

"Very well. Now I shall count from ten to one, and gradually you shall wake up, my lord. The next time we will experience hypnosis again, it shall be ten times more natural for you to reach the state of relaxation, and the latter shall be ten times deeper. "

After a brief moment of silence, I began the countdown.

My patient's chest, as I did so, rose and fell to free the air from his lungs, but as my counting continued, out of the corner of my eye I saw the artifact spinning on one of the faces and just sliding sideways, on the young man's chest.

At first, I paid no attention to it, but a second and a subsequent shift brought to my attention that the heart rate of Lord Muto was changing.

His thin fingers, resting on the arm rests of the chair, stretched out, crossed by a thrill that could not help but alarm me; I shifted my gaze to his face, noting his jaw, till a few moments before relaxed, was now tense. His eyelids, remained lowered, still subject to my previous request to stay tightened.

I held out my hand towards the artifact to shift its weight from the young man's neck, as it slipped and slid down from his chest; when I did it, I had to retract my hand because it had become inexplicably hot, and certainly not because of contact with the body heat of the person wearing it.

Seeing my sudden gesture, Mr. Crawford took a step forward towards us, but with a brusque gesture I invited him to stay where he was, asking him a few more moments.

The concern to bring Lord Muto back to reality, at that point, became overbearing; I was worried by those strange and unnatural convulsions.

But, soon, a horrible presentiment hit me, and I decided to keep counting.

"…four…"

I got up from the armchair, took out a handkerchief and passed it between my trembling sweaty fingers; after throwing it, I turned up the sleeves of my dress and stood beside my patient's body, where I carefully placed my thumb and forefinger on the lower and upper eyelids of the right eye.

When I exerted a delicate pressure to lift them, I discovered in the white pallor of his sclera an impressive red and flaming iris moving at a surprising rapidity, up and down in the orbit.

Although it was what I had hoped to achieve during the session,I held back a cry of fear, and even before I could signal him to approach, the American crossed the room and rushed to my side, worried.

He jumped like me at the sight of that eye that suddenly stopped, pointing at the ceiling.

I appealed to all my self-control, caught my breath and continued the count.

"…three…"

After letting the eyelids go softly, I repeated the operation even with the left eye, which showed us the same frightening reddish iris, mottled with tiny charcoal-black specks that, like the companion, stared into space, facing the ceiling, beyond our faces.

“… two...”

Tears began to pour from Lord Muto's eyes, along his pale cheeks; his forehead and later his face crumpled into an expression of mute and excruciating pain, and from his lips a series of strange complaints were released, in the same language with which the night of the attack had addressed me.

Mr. Crawford started. "Gosh! It cannot be! This is-!"

"…One. It's time to come to your senses, Lord Muto. Wake up."

From the throat of my patient, the river of words and sobs stopped abruptly, so much so that a strangled sound followed.

The young lord's body came back to relax, his arms stretched out, dangling down from the arms, and his chest rose and fell at a regular and relaxed pace, as at the beginning of the session.

Mr. Crawford raised his brown irises on me, pale as a ghost.

"Miss Walsh... What was it?"

Dazed, I looked away and bent down, picking up the embroidered handkerchief I had thrown to the ground, trying not to show my terror.

Despite it, I was relieved that my fears and the stranger's warnings to the British had found a way to manifest themselves not only in front of me, but in front of a witness.

The head of Lord Muto, meanwhile, had risen from the headrest, and his gaze had immediately sought our faces, also crossed by an almost inconsolable anxiety, conscious for the first time of what had happened in the lapse of time where his body had escaped his control.

It was to our great relief after that nasty moment that, meeting his gaze, we saw instead of that red ocular membrane, the purple hue typical of his irises.

I lacked the strength, and Mr. Crawford was forced to support me and make me sit on the chair in front of my equally distraught patient, although at that moment the only thing I wanted so much, if my legs had allowed me, was to run away from that room, from that house and from that case that I could no longer consider to be the competence of science.

  
"Despite the facts can confirm us that this is definitely not an identity disorder, I believe that the trance state generated has nevertheless had the effect of favoring the exchange between Lord Muto and ... the entity, which for a moment surfaced."

There was no reaction to that statement of mine, pronounced more than anything else to dilute the tension I had accumulated during the session, and to dispel the tense silence that had taken over the library for several minutes.

My patient lied on the sofa, facing the bay window that overlooked the snowy avenue, closed for several minutes in a grim silence; an arm rested on a richly embroidered pillow and his hand resting on his forehead hid his eyes and his thoughts… Not that it was too complex to imagine what he was feeling at that moment.

Unlike previous experiences, of which he remembered little or nothing and where he had been the protagonist of a mysterious story in a body that did not belong to him, on that occasion it was his turn to be a spectator in his own body.

For the first time since the occurrence of his strange symptoms, he remembered everything.

Following my words, I saw his hand move away and his eyes turned to face me.

"What led you to stray from your first hypothesis?" Mr. Crawford preceded him, low look, sitting at his desk and bending over some papers on which he had been scribbling for several minutes.

"The first strange thing that did not bind to the symptoms of that disorder was the color of his eyes. I thought that both the maids and I, in the circumstances in which we came into contact with Lord Muto, had been victims of plays of light and strange reflections generated by candles or by being made to be influenced by fear and by circumstances. But then, Lord Muto told me that he had hallucinations about that pharaoh, and after thinking back to the strange language he used to address during these personality changes, I assumed that things, although also related to the identity disorder, they could be tied. "

"Do you mean that it is possible to speak an unknown language?"

"In an identity disorder, the patient may also find himself doing so. However, this ability is always linked to a traumatic experience that the brain tends to isolate and make the individual forget to preserve his own sanity; but sometimes unwelcome memories are found to reappear through external stimuli, and to show discomfort, the second identity of the patient comes out and begins to express himself in a language that his mind connects to the trauma suffered.

But, this is the point, when I speak of ‘unknown languages’ I mean languages like German, French, Chinese and other languages that the patient has never studied... but still recognises the common sounds. However, if as I have hypothesized the language in which you express yourself is a dead language, my lord, what was not clear to me was how it could have come down to you, through whom, and in the form of what traumatic experience. "

"EUREKA!"

The young lord and I winced, turning wide-eyed to Mr. Crawford.

The latter rose from his desk; in the excitement, a trail of sheets fluttered around him on the floor, and without noticing he approached us showing the results of his mad writing.

"Pegasus, what-?"

"A dead language, my lord. Exactly as Miss Walsh said." The man confirmed "And from what I heard a little while ago, I believe that the language you refer to can be neo-Egyptian."

I looked at him goggle-eyed. In noticing my dismay Mr. Crawford coughed.

"A substitute language in place of the Ancient Egyptian at the beginning of the XVIII dynasty." he specified, leaving us astonished.

"Is it still known, to-day?" I asked.

The American shook his head vigorously. "That’s the point! In Egypt people have been speaking Arabic for centuries. The neo-Egyptian, like the ancient Egyptian and the middle Egyptian are languages that have fallen into disuse under the Ptolemaic domination."

"However, Pegasus, you understand it, you are able to translate it and speak it." Lord Muto objected.

"Unfortunately I am not able to speak and fully understand it. You see, my friend, there is no certainty about the correct pronunciation, or rather, there have been several attempts so far in attributing a specific pronunciation to these dialectal forms, but unfortunately we will never be certain that the sounds attributed to it are correct, like instead it happened for Greek and Latin. Scholars speculate, and that is all he can do at the moment. I am able to translate by referring to ancient texts reported on obelisks, cartouches and engravings, but so far no one has been able to do more. As far as I am concerned, I've only caught a few words."

He held up the paper and showed it to us. I leaned over to give it a look.

"At the moment this is what I managed to grasp: gods, battle and objects. But I have a good memory, I could work on it more calmly.” The American said, “There might be some help interpreting those words."

I was stunned. "Mr. Crawford, from what I understand, you are more than just an amateur."

The man nodded and his lips bent in a sunny smile, while Lord Muto returned the paper to him.

 

 

"So, Miss Walsh, that's what this is about… A spirit that has come down to us from Ancient Egypt has moved into my body through ... that object." And his amethyst eyes ran to the artifact, placed inside the jewelry box. "And in all probability this is the pharaoh of my visions."

"However ... it is strange." The American intervened. "I never heard of the pharaoh Atem."

"You are not the only one, sir. Believe me, being aware of his name right now makes us the top experts on the subject.” I revealed to them. “During my visit to the museum, I met a foreign man in the Egyptian wing. He was the only one who seemed aware of the existence of that pharaoh. A very strange man, but in my opinion well informed. He was wearing a large key-shaped pendant of the same size as your puzzle, my lord. It was the similarity with that object that brought me back to your mind and made me think that it could be linked to your disorder."

I avoided telling him of the warnings launched by that man about anyone who found himself aware of the existence of that pharaoh.

At the moment my patient was already struggling enough to accept being possessed by a spirit. I doubted that his and our nerves would come out intact if I added to the load of information the fact that that elusive character was an omen of disasters and had a mission to perform on behalf of pagan gods.

Lord Muto's voice returned to the library.

"What do you propose, Miss Walsh? How should we act from now on?"

"You mean-?" I stammered, taken aback "Do you mean that you intend to prolong our-?"

The uncertainty in my voice and my question seemed to frustrate him.

"I see. We are in a field that no longer competes. In my conditions, perhaps it would be more appropriate to address a priest. "

I tortured my lips, nervous.

"If that spirit has come so far through that artifact, in all likelihood when Lord Yugi put it back together, he neither sprung out." The American said. "Perhaps it will be enough to get rid of it or break it down and everything will go in its place."

I frowned, doubtful about it. "I assure you that these kinds of issues are not covered by adopting similar approaches, sir."

Sometimes the typically American unsettling optimism of the man left me speechless.

Lord Muto winced when he saw his friend lift the pendant; it was a gift from his brother; he refrained with difficulty from preventing the man from trying to remove a piece from the body of the object.

But under our incredulous eyes, Mr. Crawford's fingers suddenly receded, letting go of the artifact that fell on the velvet pillow, startling us.

"Giosafat! It burns like lava!"

"I told you, Mr. Crawford.” I shrugged “I fear we shall have to find out why that spirit has come this far.”

The American's shoulders curved downwards, and a disappointed expression appeared on his face.

I turned to my patient.

"In your vision the pharaoh was mortally wounded, my lord. It is possible that his soul did not find peace.” I said, looking for confirmations from the American.

"Well, there are many strange stories and legends about it, and after what I witnessed today, my dear, I don't feel like taking this matter lightly. Ancient Egypt was a kingdom dominated by religion and magic." He asserted, still blowing on his red thumb and forefinger "The Egyptian civilization was very strict regarding ceremonies and rituals through which a deceased and his soul had to pass for reach the Afterlife. Today, of course, these rites bring a smile to the tourists and to the men of science, but for Egyptians it was of vital importance that the soul reach the eternal rest sound and safe."

"You mean it was rare but not entirely impossible that the soul of a deceased was denied the possibility of receiving a funeral ritual and eternal rest?" Asked Lord Muto.

"Correct." Mr. Crawford nodded. "Not receiving a proper funeral ceremony and burial was something unthinkable for those people. And if these rites were denied to a pharaoh... My fellows, I dare not imagine what an atrocious crime the unlucky one might have been guilty of."

Lord Muto's lips stretched over his waxy and lost face.

"That being the case, it would not surprise me if his name and existence had been voluntarily erased from history."

"Good God..."

I was wondering if my nerves would hold up enough under that roof to find out.

I had never faced such a case alone, in a field not of my competence, and the fear of making some fatal error that could have affected my patient's state of health was a prospect that froze me.

"Miss Walsh." Lord Muto said. "Given the situation, I believe it is not safe for you to expose yourself beyond..."

I took my seat on the chair and I sighed, bringing my hand to my temple, uncertain about what to do.

Mr. Crawford's voice raised.

"That Miss Walsh or someone else will continue the journey, wouldn't you consider appropriate to inform your family and Kaiba-boy about the information we have got so far?"

Lord Muto sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the desk; it seemed that both had thought of the same possibility.

"The plan was to get enough evidence and information about my disorder, so that I could reassure my family about the possibility of a solution, and about Miss Walsh's job." The nobleman said. "However... Believe me, Pegasus, given the unexpected developments, to reveal everything now, especially to Mr. Kaiba, would expose us, Miss Walsh first, to a danger far worse than what is currently presented to us by her." he revealed, "Even if he were to accept the role of Miss Walsh in this case, I am sure that his skepticism and his rationality would risks slowing down her work. You have known him for years longer than me. His rationality makes him a person very little willing to believe in stories of spirits, possessions and rituals. "

I interrupted my ruminations and looked up, wincing at the prospect, while a meek nod of the American's head left me to understand that he agreed with my patient; at that moment my fear of Mr. Kaiba was greater than the prospect of having to deal with an ancient spirit.

Revealing everything would have been really reckless in the state of things:

I was a doctor's daughter, it was true, but in society a certification as a nurse was everything a woman was allowed to get. I had no diplomas and certificates for the legal exercise of the medical profession, and besides I had diagnosed the scion of an aristocratic family with a case of possession.

No matter how nice and friendly my patient’s family was up to that point, I would certainly risk the complaint.

Nevertheless, I could not tell myself completely against Mr. Crawford's point of view.

"I...I can understand you, Lord Muto,” I stammered, attracting their attention “but there is really no family member, less skeptical than Mr. Kaiba, whom you trust blindly and you feel you might inform?" I asked him "If, for example, Lord Yugi was willing to listen to you and support you, he could also prove to be an ally for all of us."

"Indeed. My brother would be willing to do so." nodded Lord Muto “But I am not sure I want to involve him in all this. It is too dangerous...”

"If I am allowed to express my opinion, my friend, I believe your brother is already showing a lot more cold blood than you'd expect from someone as timid and sensitive as he." The American intervened "It is my opinion that the boy deserves a chance, and that he will not disappoint any of us."

"I agree. From now on we shall need all possible support, my lord.” I nodded “Inform Lord Yugi first could be the right choice."

My patient nodded and seemed to be convinced that the latter was the right choice.

"So be it, I shall let him know everything immediately after Christmas." He said "Speaking of of possessions and spirits in these days seems to me rather in bad taste. In the meanwhile, if Miss Walsh wants to continue with the therapy, when it shall be the time to reveal everything to my brother, perhaps we will already be able to provide him with some reassurance on the case."

I found his reaction more than admirable.

Despite the problem that afflicted him, I was glad that his lucidity was always ready to support him at times when anyone would come more than natural to let himself go to despair, and that his determination was constantly transmitted to those close to him. His confidence in my skills helped me react in that moment of despair.

"Then let's continue.” I declared, getting up “We have a contract and I have responsibilities towards you, Lord Muto. I am not the greatest expert in this field, but it is not the first time that I come into contact with the subject; I shall do everything possible to deal with it." I promised him "I shall return to the British and look for that man. Maybe he can tell us something more about the story of that spirit and how to deal with it. "

If I had made any mistakes I could have put Lord Muto even more in danger, but at the state of things, if I left and refused to help him, things could have degenerated anyway.

  
For three days in a row I went to the museum in search of that foreigner, without getting any results.

Was that man a ghost? An hallucination of mine? A fool or probably a passing tourist? I did not know, but whatever he was, he had been the first to give me help, albeit in his own, strange way, and the fear I would never have had the opportunity to meet him again to ask him for help demoralized me.

Distressed by that awareness, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I returned to placing my hopes in hypnosis.

With the golden puzzle nearby, Lord Muto always proved to be very reactive, although he was less and less willing to go into the details of his memoirs; on the other hands, in the most recent sessions, the red eyes returned, accompanied again from that river of words and laments, so much that I began to convince myself that the answers we were looking for were now communicated to us in that strange language, so I asked Mr. Crawford to constantly take notes during the therapy.

Another noteworthy fact was that, following the hypnosis sessions, the intermittent manifestation of that entity in the body of the noble, when we least expected it, ceased completely.

In noticing it, the Earl, all the other members of the family and the servitude thought of an improvement of Lord Muto, and only one day before Christmas Eve the mood at the Doghouse underwent a sudden change, resulting in a sudden desire to leave the bad as soon as possible experiences lived behind, and to be able to prepare to celebrate the Christmas holidays in serenity.

I, Lord Muto and, to our misfortune, Mr. Kaiba, were the only ones to have concerns.

The inhuman amount of work that the reconstruction of the bank and the attempt to repair the financial damage that had followed it would have kept the businessman at bay for some time yet, nevertheless, I lived every day in constant fear that Mr. Kaiba would return to contact Dr. Seward without me being aware of it, and that the latter could show up at the door at any moment.

Meanwhile, the Doghouse turned into a jungle of all sorts of decorations. There was no corner of the house that could save itself from being stuffed with holly, golden and red ribbons, lace, candles and chaplets.

When the huge Christmas tree reached the door of the house (it took all the efforts of Mr. Roland and the three valets to get it through the door), even I was involved in its 'dressing' and in creating some decorations, which however did not prove to be as good as the Sebnitz ornaments(1), the delicate cornucopias filled with candied fruit, and the beautiful decorations in iron, lead, glass and paper that were gradually laid down among its fronds.

By tradition, the children - I speak of Mokuba, in our case - were not allowed to see the tree till Christmas Eve evening, so the living room became for him an impregnable fortress always guarded by a servant, and Lord Yugi, despite he was no longer a child, but not yet a man, offered himself out of solidarity with Mr. Kaiba's little brother to wait for him to watch him and be surprised by our work; so the two were content to spend hours drowning branches of berries in the red wax to create chaplets and other decorations.

The Christmas Eve’s morning Mr. Crawford entered the dining room searching for the latest news on the Daily Telegraph.

“Gosh! Have you read it? ’ _The criminal Bakura strikes near Brecon_.” It seems that he has declared war to the English nobility and their estates. And in areas very close to your family estate, Lord Yugi.”

“Knowing what Bakura is capable of, I cannot help but feeling safe here in London at the moment. But I fear that soon or later even this neighborhood could also be targeted, when the Season will start...” the young boy said, worried and uncomfortable in hearing that news.

“However, it seems that the criminal is limiting himself to banal break-ins. The newspapers also speaks of estates turned upside down, but no news of theft or aggressions have been reported.” I added.

“I wonder what’s on his mind.” Mr. Crawford said “Why on Earth should a criminal like him confine himself to entering the houses of others and then turn them upside down without stealing anything?”

“Perhaps he is looking for something specific.” I assumed, shrugging.

Lord Yugi rose from the table, crossing the room and stopping in front of the window, nervous.

“Whatever he is looking for, grandfather has already taken action and has managed to increase police patrols in sensitive neighborhoods.” he said.

“Do you think it shall be enough to stop that man?” I asked, continuing with the cropping of some magazines.

“Hm. As far as I am concern, my optimism doesn't get that far.” the American admitted, closing the newspaper.

Mokuba entered the room with another bowl of red wax, ready to resume his work where he had interrupted it, and the subject was immediately put aside.

"What are those, Miss Walsh?" the child asked, glancing at my work.

Mana had provided me with scrapbook magazines from which I had cut out the images of some felines very similar to Soriano, standing on their hind legs, as if engaged in a cheerful dance.

"It is a cat army, wearing tutus, that plays trumpets on unicycles." I replied, concentrating on shaping the tulle around the animal's waists.

Mr. Roland, in the meantime, joined us with a large log in his arms which would burn in the fireplace till the end of the celebrations.

Mokuba giggled. “A cat army playing instruments on unicycles… Indeed you have a huge imagination for your age, Miss Walsh.”

“Mokuba! This is terrible of you.” Lord Yugi exclaimed, purple.

Following the saucy words of the child I blushed to the tip of my ears.

“Mokuba, do you believe you shall be able to find a wife, one day, expressing yourself in this terrible way towards a lady?” I asked, annoyed.

“I do not know.” the child shrugged, curling his tiny mouth in a creepy smile that reminded me of the Cheshire cat “After all I am not the one who should care about it, since I am not the one of marriageable age, here.”

Although for different reasons, Lord Yugi and I started at those words, becoming more purple.

Mr. Crawford, in the meanwhile, gazed at my decorations, smiling amused.

"Amazing! In America your cats army on unicycles would have a huge success, Miss Walsh." he assured me.

I could not take it as a compliment, as much as that was the intent...

I let Soriano attack my ‘cat army’, and I got up from the table.

"I am going out for a walk." I declared, making a slight curtsey towards the occupants of the dining room and leaving.

I thought that spending Christmas away from Aunt Agatha would grant me a truce, but apparently Mokuba was more than ready to take her place...

"Miss Walsh, are you going out? Alone?" Tea asked me, crossing the lobby with a huge basket of fresh mistletoe in her arms.

"I am going to the post office to send some greeting cards, Tea. I do not think it will upset anyone.” I replied, stopping in the doorway and noticing his puzzled glances "What is it? Is my cape unsuitable?”

I was now accustomed to being commented on by maids and children on the occasion and on the time slot when a dress should or should not have been worn.

"Oh no, Miss Walsh, not the cape... I mean, Mana and I were wondering what arrangements you made for the ball gown."

I was about to put a foot out of the house, when those words had the disastrous effect of turning the blood into lead in my veins.

"The ball gow-?"

"The ball gown for the New Year’s Eve Ball. If you have already ordered it, I should see it to deciding the accessories and your hair styling. We shall have to do some tests as well, and there may be some changes to make that often take time."

From my expression the maid sensed that the bustling of the Von Schroeder’s Ball, with preparatory annexes, had not been among my priorities up to that point.

"Miss Walsh, haven't you thought about the dress yet?" The maid asked me, between the reproach and the alarm "The ball is in a week!"

I ran down the porch steps.

"Of course I have thought about it." I lied again, -God have mercy on me- "I shall go get it, Tea. I am on the road."

"Alone to carry packages? At least let Thomas or Michael handle it!"

I crossed the avenue and passed the low icy hedges and iron gates.

With my mind far from free of thoughts, to which I add that of the Ball in spite of myself, I walked along the street, recalling the first free carriage I crossed along Grosvenor Square.

The search for a dress had turned out to be a fail: with the pace of parties and celebrations and the rising demand for evening, ball and theater dresses, the shops in the center were overburdened, and the prices of fabrics had climbed to reach unacceptable prices. It was unthinkable to find any tailor's shop ready to make a dress. I would have risked not being ready for the New Year’s night, and outside the uptown, the dresses on display in the windows were certainly not up to a gala evening in high society.

The morning ended like this, with two hours up and down on a carriage that took me back to my apartment in Whitechapel, where the total lack of decorations, the grayness of the apartments reflected my current mood more accurately than the festive atmosphere of London’s uptown areas.

Opening the front gate, I entered the courtyard of the building, going up the flight of stairs to my apartment.

The smell of the good pudding prepared by the Doghouse’s cook lost its battle against the smells of my neighborhood, which returned to fill my nostrils.

"Miss Walsh?" A cawing voice called to me from the stairwell "Are ya up there? Are ya back? "

"Yes, Mrs. Hoove, it’s me. I am just passing through." I replied aloud, to let me hear from the neighbor "Did something come for me these days? "

"Letters, Miss Walsh. I gathered ‘em near yer entrance." The woman warned me, poking her head out of the ramp “Oh, I was forgettin’. An old, despicable ma’am came ‘ere three days ago an’ asked for ya. I told ‘er ya left for a few days. It took us a while to make ‘er understand that we weren't keepin’ ya hidden in our apartment. That woman stuck ‘er nose in my house an’ even allowed ‘erself to turn up ‘er nose at the smell o’ my cabbage soup.”

“Aunt Agatha.” I sighed, raising my eyes to the ceiling in recognizing her from the description given to me.“I hope she haven't created too much trouble to you all, Mrs. Hoove.”

“Nay. Not too much, Miss Walsh. Ye sooty faces an’ hands o’ Everglott ‘s children were enough to put ‘er to flight.”

"Thank you, Mrs. Hoove."

I found the pile of letters and postcards on the old dresser resting wearily on a peeling wall in the corridor. I took them. One of the postcards was from Aunt Agatha herself: like every year her greeting card represented yet another stiff little animal, a symbol of the old year that was about to end to left space to the new(2), but more than anything else seemed a warning for me to return to her before I ended up like that dead sparrow on the postcard.

I put the letters under my cape, and after exchanging a few words with the woman and leaving her a few coins for the 'guard' job she and her husband offered to do for my apartment in my absence, I turned the keys in the lock and I entered the apartment.

Two hour later, I was already returning to the Doghouse with old occult manuals under my arms and a trunk containing three of my mother's ball gowns which I thought might be appropriate for the ball; the intent was to ask Mana and Tea to make some changes to one of those, rejuvenating their style and adding some fashionable frills.

Crossing the threshold in time to prepare for the Christmas Eve celebrations, I was welcomed by an atmosphere that was not the festive and relaxed I had left in the morning.

At the sight of Mana's pale face - which came to me and helped me with cape and trunk - I feared that the young lord or a member of the family had once again been the victim of an attack by the entity.

"What is happening?” I asked, abandoning the cape in the maid’s arms, and hastily slipping off the gloves, headed for the upper floors “Did anything happen to Lord Muto or...?”

The cause of that almost palpable tension was soon clear when, reached the first floor, I found Lord Yugi, Mr. Crawford and Mokuba in the corridor, with their ears resting against the door of the Viscount’ studio.

"May I know what is happening here?" I asked, perplexed.

Mokuba turned to me and put his finger to his lips, asking me to lower my voice.

"We are trying to figure it out." Mr. Crawford whispered to me "Lord Muto and Kaiba-boy have just started to argue but we don’t understand the reason, yet."

“Perhaps we should not discover it at all, do you agree?” I said.

It was not my habit to eavesdrop, except in some _exceptional occasions_ , and at first I must admit I was quite shocked to see three males, of which a man in middle-age, act that disreputable way.

However, whether it was my intention to eavesdrop or not, beyond the door Lord Muto and Mr. Kaiba’s voices could be heard in any case, and immediately reached my ears.

"... so because of this, did you feel compelled to take such an initiative, without even asking me and my family?"

"Don't be naive, Yami. You are being influenced by the fact that Seward runs an asylum, but he was always our family doctor even before he accepted the direction of that place! All I did was contact him to ask him for a consultation, like your grandfather did with your practitioner! I cannot see the difference!"

Seward? Asylum?!

My heart sank after those words, and with a terrible presentiment I decided that this was the exceptional occasion I had just mentioned a few seconds before, and that required further explanations.

I made space between Lord Yugi and Mr. Crawford; the folds of my overskirt and skirt almost swallowed the little Mokuba, as I leaned over the door to better hear the discussion.

"You cannot see the difference, you say? The difference is that I was informed by my family unlike you! You could have also contacted the Queen of England in person, but the fact that you did it behind my back remains!" Thundered Lord Muto "Do you believe that my mental state is already so compromised that you do not consider necessary to consult me?"

"Doubt occurs to me, given the unreasonable way you are behaving!"

They roared like panthers against each other and after hearing the last words of Mr. Kaiba I felt my breath fail, imagining how terrible it must be for Lord Muto to hear such words being addressed in such a delicate moment.

"I do not understand." Lord Yugi whined "We were together, Yami came into his room for a moment to get something, and found a letter on the bedside table. When he read it, the row broke out.” He told us.

"I found the letter..." Mana whispered, making us starting "I… I was cleaning the master’s bedroom when I found that letter on the floor; it had fallen under the bed and not knowing what to do with it, I left it in sight thinking that the master had lost it."

Instead, apparently someone else had lost the fake letter I previosuly wrote... and in the wrong place!

"At least, unlike you, I acted to find a solution to the problem!" roared Mr. Kaiba, meantime. "And what did you do so far, Yami, besides hiding?"

"The way you claim to be right at all costs is shameful, Kaiba!"

I stepped forward and put my hand on the brass door handle.

"Absurd! We need to intervene before- !"

"Come not between the dragon and his wrath(3)." Mr. Crawford said, and his hand leaned forward and held the door, preventing me from opening it "For your safety, my dear, I strongly advise you not to intervene."

"Thank God, grandfather is not here." Lord Yugi sighed, torturing his lips.

Following those words, the silence took over the studio, leaving us stunned.

"Oh." The American shrugged "It is already over. They always find a way to be reconciled…"

I did not have time to go into that last statement, because we had to step aside, from the door as much as possible, so as not to give the impression of having shamefully overheard that argument.

Mr. Kaiba was the first to leave the studio, followed by Lord Muto.

The businessman turned immediately to him, still facing him with eyes darting.

It did not seem that they had found a meeting point, as Mr. Crawford previously stated.

The tones had subsided, but Lord Muto kept staring at Mr. Kaiba's eyes, angry and disappointed; the same hatred was reflected as in a mirror in the other's sapphire gaze; Mr. Kaiba gave his back to the young lord and came towards us.

"Get ready, Mokuba." he ordered, addressing his little brother "Let's go home. Now."

We jumped, and the child barely held back a groan of disappointment.

“But… big brother, I...”

"Kaiba-boy, whatever happened, it is Christmas Eve...” Mr. Crawford tried to intervene, but the man had already went down the stairs, nervously grabbed his  coat, the top hat and the gloves; once his mortified little brother was ready, they left the house without Lord Muto saying a word to stop them.

Instead, to our surprise, the young lord turned to his brother.

“Yugi. I have to talk to you.”

 

  
**CONTINUE. (Due to some problems I won't be able to post the 9th chapter today, Sunday June 30th, but I'll try to publish it by the end of the week, so stay tuned! X3)**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)Sebnitz: names of famous and peculiar Christmas decorations. Sebnitz was a small town in the Saxonian Erzgebirge, famous for the production of ornaments typically composed of a huge, seemingly incongruent bunch of materials: punched silver foil, glass tubes, beads, cotton, paper, fabric, chenille, cardboard, tin foil, wire, scraps, wood, and fir cones. Victorians went mad for that type of decorations!  
> (2)Christmas cards: Victorian Christmas cards could be quite creepy: anthropomorphic cats, murderous frogs, insects dancing by the moonlight and dead birds. The meaning, especially in the dead birds one, could be “this year is about to end (to die) to leave place to the new one.”, or related to Christ, to his birth, his dead and his resurrection. But often the cards could be very cryptic, carrying a strange mix of beliefs both pagan and Christian, and their true symbolism got lost to time.  
> (3)“Come not between the dragon and his wrath”: a quote from ‘King Lear’ by William Shakespeare, that means “do not get in someone’s way when angry”.


	9. Chapter 9: Inside the Puzzle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings and welcome back to you all!  
> I apologize for delaying the publication of this chapter. The problems are not only derived from the length and the substantial number of events that take place in this part of the story, but also because of rl, with the contribution of the current season that attacks my physical health as bonus.  
> So... Thank you all for being so patient. I really hope you will like this chapter and the new illustrations! Let me know your opinions, if you want; I’ll be glad to receive them!  
> Before leaving you, as always, I would like to thank all the readers, old and new, who decided to give a chance to this story and constantly follow its developments! You all are very kind and precious! <3

**-Chapter 9: Inside the Puzzle-**

 

“I beg pardon. Did you say a spirit?"

"I am afraid so, Lord Yugi.” I confiermed “During the last sessions of hypnosis, its presence was revealed with increasing regularity."

"It is terrible! And you, Miss Walsh, all this time, have worked…? Oh, Yami, I should never have put that puzzle together. It is all my fault!"

The poor Lord Yugi was so stunned and distressed after his brother’s revelations that he could not finish a sentence before starting another.

I glanced sideways at my patient, worried by the silence in which the latter had taken refuge, and I found him standing in front of the window that looked out on the driveway, closed in a thoughtful silence.

"Your fault? Don't even joke, my friend." Mr. Crawford promptly intervened, shaking his head vigorously and turning to Lord Yugi." It would be if you had been aware of the contents and history of that artifact, but given the circumstances I cannot see how you can blame yourself for the matter. " he reassured him, holding out to him a glass, in my opinion, a little too abundant in wine which, however, at that moment of great disturbance, the teenager did not disdain.

"Pegasus is right, Yugi." Lord Muto said, emerging from his silence, shortly after "At this point, what is done is done, and unfortunately we cannot go back."

In stating this, he looked away from the outer avenue where Mr. Kaiba and his brother had left an hour before, and returned to take place among us; I had the almost absolute certainty that his thoughts were still turned to the regrettable discussion in which him and Mr. Kaiba had been involved just before...

"Tell me, Miss Walsh." Lord Yugi asked, turning his attention to me and placing the empty glass on the table "Have you ever had the chance to meet cases like my brother's before?"

"Not exactly like this one, but during my apprenticeship I came into contact with equally particular cases."

"I see. Are these people healthy, now?"

Lord Muto shook his head and winced. "Yugi! I suppose it is the wine which makes you talk like that."

I laughed a little. "No, my lord, I think it is apprehension, and I can understand it. If I were in your position, Lord Yugi, I would be equally anxious and wary." I admitted, turning back to the teenager, who blushed.

"My apologies, Miss Walsh, it was not my intention to doubt you, but-"

"But as you should, you care about your brother and his well-being." I smiled. "Well, I intend to continue with the hypnosis sessions. At this point, and having Lord Muto reached an unexpected propensity for hypnotic trance, I would like to take another step forward as soon as possible. Moreover, I am sure that the translation work that Mr. Crawford is doing can reveal us something more about the solution."

"I see." Lord Yugi tortured his lips, apprehensively "If Yami claims to have complete trust in you, Miss Walsh, you shall have as much on my part. Is there anything I can do to make me as useful as you and Mr. Crawford? I am afraid I do not have any good skill..."

"Yugi, you are my brother," said Lord Muto, turning his gaze to him "You have always done more than you were required, for me, and longer than you can imagine."

"But, Yami-"

"Listen. You have always been by my side, you have always defended and listened to me when I needed most, and you have always been the first to support my choices, without prejudice. So, promise that you shall continue to do what you always do so well: be the best brother I could wish for." Lord Muto smiled, while his brother hugged him, hiding his tears from us.

I held back a sob, discovering my eyes pinch and shine. In noticing it, Mr. Crawford gallantly handed me a handkerchief.

When the Earl of Hereford returned home, after the celebrations at Windsor Castle, he was given an explanation of the sudden departure of Mr. Kaiba and Mokuba, during the abundant Christmas dinner.

"What? Did they leave on Christmas Eve? Without even finding the opportunity to meet me in person to thank the hospitality?" Were the grumblings of His Grace, as he concluded the last course "These ungrateful bourgeois."

"But, grandfather," intervened Lord Yugi, in an extremely neutral and kind voice. "May I remind you that it was our family who owed Mr. Kaiba? Plus, he is currently working on the reconstruction of the Central Bank. I think it understandable that he puts this duty before-"

"And I believe that holding back for a 'thank you' one more day could not have worsened the situation of the bank and the entire economy more than that." His Grace croaked, "Didn’t he say something about the budgets of which he was working on my behalf?"

"His work here was concluded." Lord Muto intervened calmly, without looking up from his dessert, which had remained intact, like most of the dishes served to him during the dinner. "Given the delicate circumstances that have recently been taken over, I have not found reasons to prevent him from returning to occupy his estate."

That reply sounded to our ears so cold and detached that for a moment we stopped chewing and turned our attention to the Earl; fortunately, the man's extraneousness to the facts, combined with the attention he was totally devoting to his pudding, prevented him at that juncture from judging that hasty reply as a signal of the breakdown of the ‘harmony’ between my patient and Mr. Kaiba.

In the following days, we no longer heard of the latter, except through the newspapers that announced the slow but steady progress of the agreements made, the beginning of the enlargement works at the Bank, and of the progress that his director was taking performing, despite the satirical newspapers did their utmost to sell more copies, proposing at the very least extravagant articles and little credible truths.

Lord Muto read the news among the columns of newspapers with impassive indifference, without expressing any opinion on the matter; he became so adept at diverting the speech and showing himself neutral in his opinions, that it was complex to understand how in the last days had evolved his real feelings and thoughts about the matter.

 

 

In those same days, between St. Stephen’s day and the New Year’s Eve, Mr. Crawford announced that he was very close to the conclusion of his translations, which they had committed every hour of his free time, during the Christmas celebrations.

Impatient and nervous, I served myself another cup of jasmine tea, waiting in the library for Lord Yugi and my patient to join us.

From time to time, from behind the cup, I contemplated the American immersed in the latest corrections to his work, surrounded by papers, notes, encyclopedias, dictionaries and texts that could support his research; he was so focused that his face had become extraordinarily serious, his forehead slightly wrinkled, and there was no trace of the smile that his lips hinted by nature and that it was always ready to make itself wider at the first opportunity.

"Could you say which dynasty this artifact came from?" I asked him, some minutes later, seeing him emerge from his notes and looking at the pendant.

"It is difficult to establish. The individual pieces of this puzzle have been created with a mold casting technique, but it is complex to find elements in common with other artifacts, which lead us to a precise dating.” He explained; “Perhaps... The lack of applications in glass, faience and plating makes me hypothesize that it may be prior to the nineteen dynasty.” he hypothesized, looking up and staring at the puzzle with as much perplexity "My word. I have never seen a similar work before. In any case, ancient artifacts like this could have been transmitted from generation to generation, so it is possible that our pharaoh did not necessarily belong to the dynasty in which the Puzzle was created. Are you all right, Miss Walsh? "

"Forgive me, sir.” I started “Your admirable dedication and knowledge enchanted me.” I admitted.

Mr. Crawford was silent for a few moments, so that I deeply blushed, fearing I had uttered something extremely out of place; and yet, a few moments later, I again saw the smile return to the man's face.

"Well, Miss Walsh, I am relieved to be able to give my full contribution to the cause, as you are already doing. Your father must have been a truly extraordinary person. He raised you by transmitting his knowledge and his same passion and thanks to them, I am sure we shall be in charge of this soon."

“What about you, Mr. Crawford? At this point it seems clear that your knowledge exceed that of a simple amateur. "

He placed the pen on the clipboard for a moment, letting himself go against the back of the chair. A hint of melancholy veiled his gaze.

"I must admit that working in the archeology field had never occurred to me before the age of twenty. Furthermore, I approached it by pure chance. The loss of a person very dear to me led me to leave my country when I was little more than eighteen, and to take me to the old continent.” He revealed.

I did not dare to ask him who the person whose loss had led him to such an extreme decision, but shifting my attention to the man’s hand that held the cup at that moment, I noticed for the first time the ring he was wearing on the ring finger; she must have been a splendid woman, the one he had loved; it was suggested to me by hair with golden reflections, artfully woven into that tiny fragment of memento mori(1).

"A brave choice, sir." I observed, interested.

"Everything seemed so meaningless to me after that sad event. I had the dream of becoming a famous painter, but after that person's untimely death, all my dreams and aspirations lost consistency. My father had planned a career in finance for me, but I could not resist the pressures of my family and, taken by despair, I decided to leave everything and travel the world, trying to find again the inspiration I had lost. "

"Did you find it?"

"Not immediately. I traveled through Europe for a long time. In Germany I came into contact with a circle of Egyptologists who were looking for artists to immortalize the murals inside some new tombs discovered near Dashur. The day I landed in Alexandria and visited the first sites, my heart was inextricably linked to that splendid land, so much so that it was impossible for me to be able to abandon it for many years. You have been to the British Museum, Miss Walsh. It is certainly not a good comparison, I realize, but the energy of which even today these specimens are permeated, did you feel it too? Well” he said, after I nodded, fascinated "in Egypt you can breathe constantly. That land is soaked of it.

"It was certainly not a life of ease and wealth, the one I led, but the hard work went to soothe the loss suffered, and after a long time my soul became peaceful again. I learned something extraordinary every day, and soon the archaeologists I worked with were happy to pass on their knowledge to me. I spent most of my youth in the desert dunes, and during the periods when the expeditions were interrupted, I returned to Cairo or Alexandria to catalog the discoveries, I studied the dead languages and the stories of the great monarchs who had made Egypt a big country. The knowledge that I was doing something useful and that made me as happy as that person wanted to see me, helped me overcome my pain. Then I returned to America fifteen years later, when I received news of my father's death. From that day on I let the world of finance keep me active." He smiled "Especially when I met Kaiba-boy. On his first visit to the NY Stock Exchange with his stepfather, he put us all in line, that conceited kid."

I listened to him carefully, hinting a smile, and when he finished his story we remained for a moment closed in a respectful silence. From his words the love he had felt for Egypt and for his work transpired, and listening to him talk about that land could not help but make me feel fascinated by it, as well.

"Being able to find happiness and a purpose in life, after the loss of someone, is the best way to honor that person's memory."

"I could not agree more with you, Miss Walsh." He nodded, while the library doors opened.

"My apologies, Miss Walsh. I received a letter from the Viscount, and I spent some time updating him on the latest events.” Lord Muto informed us, followed closely by Lord Yugi. “He asked us to extend to you all his most sincere wishes."

Returning the greetings, we all took a seat around the table in the room.

"So, is there any news, Mr. Crawford?" Asked Lord Yugi.

The American nodded promptly; getting up, he held out to us one of the papers on which the translations were written "It was not easy at all, but I believe that the text can be considered correct. I took the liberty of asking some friends for advice, just to be sure. You see, initially I thought it might have been some ancient canticle, given the widespread use of words such as Divinity, battle, spirits ... However, now that I observe the whole in its totality, I see no reference to prayers nor to passages from the Book of the Dead.” Mr. Crawford explained pointing to a fresh copy of the aforementioned text, next to him. "As far as I can tell, these are warnings, my fellows."

"Warnings?" Lord Muto repeated, looking up at him.

"Often returns a reference to a mysterious entity, a sort of evil spirit." the man raised the sheet in question and indicated the pace with the tip of the pen "For example, we could translate this expression as ' _The One whose hand descends upon the solar disk_ ' and here again it repeats ‘ _He who comes to lead everything to conclusion_ '. Very similar warnings follow, and then... these last lines pronounced during the last session gave me a lot of trouble. "

_"'He cannot find peace,'" I read "his emissary wanders between the labyrinth and the world beyond it, in search of the soul to be immolated so that his step can be heard again up to the borders with the land of the living_."

I lowered the sheet, and all four of us looked at each other, petrified.

"The soul to immolate..." repeated Lord Muto.

"It cannot be-? If this spirit has seized Yami... does this mean that the soul to immolate is his own?" Lord Yugi broke off, his gaze veiled with horror.

"No, there is something not quite right about this." I muttered. "It does not seem that the pharaoh and the spirit described here are the same entity. Mr. Crawford is right. These are warnings."

"Seems the pharaoh wanted to warn us about this second entity." The American nodded.

"Well, we can only hypothesize it." I sighed, turning to Lord Muto "We need to get new information. My lord, I have to ask you to try another hypnosis session with me. "

"But in the last sessions I have done nothing but repeat in detail that unique memory..."

"No regressive hypnosis, this time." I stated, "I intend to establish a real contact with the pharaoh. Let him and you exchange."

A chorus of objections rose from the library shelves.

"But it could be dangerous." the American said.

"Miss Walsh-!" Lord Yugi stammered at the same time, bouncing on his chair "What if something terrible should happen to my brother?"

"Yugi, of course Miss Walsh would not be here if something terrible was not already happening to me."

We both turned to Lord Muto, who sat and stared at the puzzle in front of him. He seemed as worried as we were about facing such an experiment and yet, when his eyes met his brother's, that trace of fear had disappeared from his gaze. He raised the artifact and put it on in front of the teenager's bewildered gaze.

"Yugi, there is no other solution. Given the situation, if we do not run any risks, I doubt that we shall be able to put an end to this story."

"Do you really think that the spirit can be collaborative and talk to us again?" The American whispered to me, anguished "We barely understand its ravings..."

"We have to give it a try. It is also probable that his difficulty in expressing himself resides in the fact that till now, Lord Muto, during the sessions, has kept some control over his body." I explained to him, then turning to my patient "Lord Muto, are you willing to give it a try and surrender your body for a certain period of time? No more than ten minutes."

"If you can help me do it, then I am willing to give you my full consent."

Without wasting time, my patient, Mr. Crawford and I prepared for the session.

We closed the doors of the library, and Lord Yugi offered to remain on the lookout outside, near the room, to prevent any kind of interruption from outside.

"Everything will be fine. Once I have induced the hypnotic trance, all you have to do is follow my instructions."

My patient nodded, taking a seat on the couch.

Placing my pocket watch just above his eyes, I gave it a slight push and it began to sway, after which, I tried to keep its course as constant as possible.

"The more you hear my voice, the easier it shall become for you to fall into a trance."

Thanks to the stimuli and orders I had given him in the first sessions, entering the hypnotic trance had become very fast and simple for him. When it seemed the right moment, and his body relaxed, I continued to address him with extreme calm, mentally preparing the speech and choosing the best words that would have allowed him more easily to meet my expectations.

"Listen to me carefully, Lord Muto. To-day I have to ask you to exchange your soul with the pharaoh Atem." I explained to him "This means that I shall ask you to cancel all resistance to make this happen. You shall begin to withdraw the presence of your soul in your body. Let it settle down, think of nothing. Empty your mind. I would like you to let the spirit be free to find refuge in your body, to feel secure in it and to remain there till it hears me count to five. Then you shall come back in your body, and it shall return inside the puzzle."

After several seconds, I started counting backwards, from five to one, and snapping my fingers.

Lord Muto’s eyes flew open, then suddenly closed, while his body sagged limply on the sofa; he remained motionless, as inanimate as a mannequin for seconds that seemed interminable to me, but to my extreme relief, just as I was about to abandon myself to despair, the young man's long dark lashes vibrated and his eyelids lifted, showing those now familiar and fearsome amaranth eyes. Shadows seemed to form around his eyes giving him an intimidating aura.

"Pharaoh, please, stand up." I whispered.

I tried not to let myself be distracted by that strange phenomenon, but soon I had to get up from my place, scared, stopping to observe the skin of the young man's face, his hands, and I suppose the rest of his body, slowly passing from the whiteness of the marble to an exotic amber complexion.

Mr. Crawford barely restrained a curse and dropped his pen and notebook to the ground.

Lord Muto’s - no; the Pharaoh’s eyes - stared intensely forward. His head moved slowly; his hands crawled along the seat of the sofa, and helped the torso to come back upright with some effort. At that moment he reminded a doll moved by some sort of mechanism.

When the young man's face rose towards mine, his blood eyes widened, appalled.

He turned his gaze to his surrounds, scanning every corner of the room, he seemed temporarily lost then gradually settled, frowning darkly with distrust, anger and discontent.

  
Lord Muto's eyes flew open and, bewildered, the young man sat up, discovering beneath him no longer the soft fabric of the sofa, but a cold floor formed by large slabs of rough stone.

He uttered a groan of surprise, and the distorted and cacophonous echo of his own voice clashed against the walls, floors and ceilings around him. The terrifying sound made him shiver; a profound discomfort assailed him.

The dimly lit area he found himself looked like a maze, the most absurd and intricate he had ever seen, where endless flights of stone stairs winded; on the ground, on the ceilings and around him, wherever his eyes rested. The thing that struck him most was the sight of seemingly infinite staircases, all leading in different directions with no regard to logic or physics. At the end of each, there could be seen a door; some sturdy, some old, some mysteriously shrouded in darkness and barely distinguishable. Lord Muto took courage, and climbed a staircase to reach the first old and rusty door he had in sight: he knocked against its cold metal. The heavy blows landed on the door echoed loudly, but he could not open it.

What could be hidden behind all those doors? What was their meaning?

He opened several, but found no answers; some led to blind alleys, others concealed other doors behind them, others still were impossible to reach due to deep areas of emptiness between one stairway and another.

When he managed to open yet another door and passed it, he fell into the complete darkness; behind him the door disappeared, as did every trace of the bleachers and icy stone walls.

A pair of small yellow eyes opened in front of him and, from the darkness, he heard something crawling toward him.

He retreated in fear, groping desperately for the door that had led him into that unknown abyss, but without success. Two strong hands wrapped around his ankles, dragging him to the ground, and when he turned his head, he discovered the lower limbs already partly vanished under the body of that creature half snake and half demon.

"Let me go!" He moaned, trying to slip away; he struggled with all his strength, but that darkness, those inhuman eyes, those enormous hands had reached his shoulders immobilizing him completely, rendering all his efforts vain.

The creature made a guttural sound from the jaws that froze his blood.

"MISS WALSH!" Lord Muto shouted "YUGI! "He raised his head, trying to gain a last breath of air, and a tear ran down his face as he saw a figure in front of him, with familiar sapphire eyes, materialize.

“Kaiba...”

 

"What-?"

Mr. Kaiba's eyes widened, turning away from the contents of the folder that the butler had given him just before. As he got up from his desk, his hand had hit something, and when he looked down at the floor, he saw pieces of pure white opal scattered at his feet.

"Damn it!" he hissed, throwing his briefcase on the table, stiffly.

"I shall call a maid to clean up, sir." Mr. Roland said.

"No. It is not necessary." The man dismissed him, while Mokuba peeked in the doorway.

"Big brother? I heard a noise-”

"Stay where you are. You risk getting hurt.” Mr. Kaiba bent over the pieces on the ground and raised the largest ones, placing them on the desk.

Mokuba looked over the table to see what had happened. "Oh no, Yami's gift..." he whispered, bending down and lifting a sapphire that had rolled to his feet, recognizing from the parts left intact the white dragon-shaped paperweight.

Mr. Kaiba frowned, irritated, closing the fragments in a handkerchief, then returned to the documents Mr. Roland had brought him just before.

He retraced the lines of the text, with a mixture of anger and disbelief.

"Big brother, are you all right?"

"Have you finished your homework?" Asked the man, looking up at the boy. "Is there something you do not understand?"

"Aye. I did not get the reason why we left the Doghouse."

“Forget about all them, Mokuba.” the businessman replied, taking seat and lacing his fingers under his chin; his sapphire eyes resting on the handkerchief bundle beside him.

“I cannot, big brother. Yami and his family are my friends.” Mokuba affirmed.

“He is nothing but unreliable liar, and that woman.... I made a mistake in giving Yami my trust, and it shall never happen again, be sure of it. Remember that lesson, Mokuba.”

“Yami has been strange, lately, because of his recent problem, but I am sure he did not want to hurt you.” the child pointed out “As you claim to have made a mistake, Yami as well has run into the same-”

“I am not willing to forgive him. Now, let's close the question here. It is about me and Yami and you should stay out of it.” He dismissed the question.

The child nodded, resigned, retrieving his exercise books and heading towards the door. “You should throw that broken paperweight before you get hurt, big brother.”

Mr. Kaiba snorted. Left alone in the office, he threw the folder next to the bundle containing the pieces of the statuette, letting himself go against the back of the chair. 

Spending time in contact with him and Lord Muto under the same roof had given Mokuba a small forked tongue.

 

Fighting against that demon was useless. That monster was like quicksand, but when Lord Muto was about to succumb to that creature, a blinding golden glow invaded the room and tore the darkness before his eyes clouded with tears; the young lord saw the huge black demon pitch back slowly fade away, roaring furiously as it dissipated.

When the young man returned to his senses, the same beam of light, which had become more tenuous, still stood beside him, giving his body a pleasant warmth.

The noble tried to focus on the face of his savior, and when he discovered his melancholy and proud gaze, of an intense sapphire blue, he stood up, incredulous.

"Kaiba? What are you doing here?" Lord Muto froze; holding out his hand to him, he discovered it crossing the semi-transparent body of the man. "No… You are not him..." he whispered, staring at the long tunic worn by that man, and wincing "However I have already seen you before. You are Seth, aren't you?"

The figure remained silent and, getting back on its feet, proceeded towards a door, indicating it with a gold scepter that he carried with him, and then fading through.

"Wait!" The nobleman reached and grabbed the knob, hardly opening the door whose hinges were encrusted with rust; once he crossed the threshold, he felt the floor disappearing under his feet. He found himself suspended in a clear blue sky, dominated by a warm, luminous sun that cast its rays over the desert.

Lord Muto looked around, amazed, and when his feet rested on the ground, sinking into a thick sandy layer, he discovered himself in a crowded city, on the road that led to a majestic palace.

It was useless to try to establish contact with the locals; the inhabitants continued to carry out their daily duties undisturbed, and from time to time someone crossed his body, unaware of his presence.

Only when he stopped in front of the palace gates, a calm voice came behind him, making him jump.

"You must be the host." dark-skinned man with deep blue eyes remarked, curiously.

Stopping in front of Lord Muto, a key-shaped pendant swayed on his chest, catching the sun's rays and attracting the noble's attention, who recalled Miss Walsh's description of the stranger with a turban, met at the museum, and which seemed to recall the features of that person.

"The host?" He repeated, frowning suspiciously.

"If you were not, you certainly would not have been able to get here."

"Here, where? Where are we? Who are you? "

"I am a fragment of a memory of the pharaoh Atem. This is one of the places in the maze where the memories of the priests and the pharaoh’s meet and intertwine. I am surprised you managed to access it."

"A man showed me the way through the maze," Lord Muto explained to him. "I was attacked by a demon in there, and he saved me. I believe he was Seth."

"The priest Seth?" the Egyptian man repeated, surprised. "I see. In this infinity-maze there are other fragments of memories besides me."

Lord Muto looked around, turning toward the high walls that separated the royal palace from the city.

"How did you get hold of one of the Millennium Item?"

"That inverted pyramid pendant, you mean? I do not know. It is an object that our family has kept longer than I thought. Only recently my brother was able to reassemble it, and from that moment the spirit of the pharaoh began to manifest itself through my body. He is creating so many problems, from that day..."

"It is not the Pharaoh that you have to fear." the man immediately admonished him. "I perceive a second person has been chosen by one of these objects… By he Millennium Ring. I fear that the demon that attacked you in the maze, previously, came through that corrupt ring."

The young lord raised his dark eyebrows. "Do you mean that the maze does not extend only within the puzzle?"

The Egyptian shook his head. "It winds through a dimension that connects all seven objects. In life I was the priest holding the Millennium Key but, like all the other priests, my soul has found peace. I do not know the reason why the soul of my king has not been affected by the same fate. Since then he is forced to wander in this maze, so that his mind over time has come to release the memories of the people who had lived beside him."

"Do you know the identity of the new owner of the ring?"

The man half-closed his melancholy eyes and shook his head.

"Unfortunately I don’t. But he has had the ring for a long time.” He answered, approaching the wall and starting to fade through. "Follow me. If you have come this far, and that woman I met at the museum is trying to help you put an end to all this, the contribution I can give you is to show you the old owner of the Ring and with him part of the story that concerns all us."

Lord Muto looked him vanish through the enclosure wall that bordered the perimeter of the building, and closing his eyes he did the same, letting go against the wall, reappearing on the opposite side and discovering himself in front of large doors inside the building.

An echo of furious cries rose above them and made the young man jump.

After the priest had raised the Key to the doors and they had opened wide, Lord Muto crossed them, immersing himself in an intense glow that sprang from them.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he found himself right in the middle of the throne room, where a large group of guards and officials had gathered around someone.

"Can you hear me? Pharaoh! Pharaoh Atem! "

At those words, the young lord lowered his gaze, discovering, lying on the ground a few steps from him, a young man with features almost identical to his, motionless in the arms of who he recognized as the priest Seth.

"He killed the pharaoh!" Shouted one of the closest priests, pointing to a figure standing out a few meters from them "Guards, stop Bakura! Do not let him escape!"

Lord Muto started, and when his eyes rose to the man who was on the opposite side of the room, a moan came from his lips.

“Bakura?”

The thief had been hindered in his attempt to escape to the wide balcony, and blocked by a large group of guards.

Lord Muto looked at him attentively, seeing a large golden ring waving against the thief's chest whose circumference was adorned with sharp pendants: the Millennium Ring.

A tremendous premonition made its way into his mind: that man did not resemble his dear childhood friend, but the memory of the day when the massacre of his family friends was discovered in their neighbor's house was almost surreptitiously re-emerging in his mind.

Meanwhile, the priest Seth recovered from the moment of loss, and raised his pain contorted face towards a priest at his side.

"Karim, run and call the healers! The pharaoh still breathes!"

A barely discernible cry broke free from the lips of the king.

"Pharaoh, do not force yourself. Look at me! Just look at me!"

The young king rose his hand from the bloody chest, going to tighten the priest's robe "Seth, you must succeed me to the throne... You must gather the items and..."

"What? Pharaoh, I cannot-!"

"You have to. Seth, the Puzzle and the Millennium Items... You must put all the seven items in the stele, or it shall be too late for you all... and Zorc…"

The pharaoh's fingers grazed the priest's face, catching the warm and salty tears that ran through him, and then fell back into his lap.

"Pharaoh? No! No! Atem, please-!"

Lord Muto looked away, when the pharaoh’s lifeless limbs let themselves go limply in the priest's arms, his eyes became glassy and his full lips exhaled the last breath.

 

 

"Do not let escape that assassin!” Ordered the priest Karim. “His Ka is freeing itself!”

After those words, an enormous black winged creature with a snake's tail emerged from a large stone stele that it shattered under the startled looks of the priests.

“The beast in the maze!” Lord Muto recognized it.

"Get out of the way, idiots!" Roared the thief Bakura, furious, clenching his fists, “Diabound!”

Following that recall, the black demon released a strong field of energy that hurled the soldiers from the opposite side of the room. The thief freed himself from the grip of the last soldier, but as soon as he reached the balcony, two other extraordinary creatures, a winged woman and a giant beast, materialized in front of him, hurling him and his demon to the opposite side of the throne room, immobilizing him.

“Exodia and Spiria will not last long, Seth.” the priest Karim exclaimed, worried.

Despite having been captured, the thief bent his lips into a cheeky and wicked grin. "Do you want me to hold back for your coronation, priest Seth? Dear of you, but I don’t have much time. What a pity your father Aknadin is not here with us today. He expected nothing but this, and I didn't even have to intervene to make his wish come true!” He exclaimed, wriggling and bursting into an unpleasant and grotesque laugh.

The priest Seth's face became as pale as those of the other priests. "My father-? Aknadin?! "

The thief Bakura grinned. "It's a shame that I had to get rid of him. It would have been touching to see father and son reunited after so many years. What a pathetic old man. You all are pathetic! And your pharaoh… Perhaps he may be more useful to me now that he’s dead."

"Mind your tongue!" An old and stocky gray-haired priest exclaimed, outraged. "Do not dirty the name of the pharaoh and the late priest Aknadin in our presence!"

"Hahaha! If you heard about his past and Aknadin's plans you would think twice before defending his name!" Bakura laughed, his face deformed by madness.

"No way..." whispered Lord Muto; his eyes lingered on the Millennium Puzzle that the priest Seth held in his trembling fingers.

"Come on, Seth, take his place on the throne! It’s a pity your regency won't last long.” Bakura continued, as Diabound freeing itself from the grip of Exodia and Spiria, destroying them; simultaneously with the destruction of the two creatures, the oldest priest and a young priestess knelt on the ground, exhausted.

"Zorc shall awaken, and there shall be nothing left over which you can reign! It won’t be long!"

"STOP WITH THESE INSENSATE SPEECHES, BAKURA!" Seth screamed furiously. “Priest Shada!”

"You shall pay for what you did to our pharaoh, and also to the deceased priests Mahad and Aknadin!" the priest Shada said, raising a large gold key in front of him.

"Priests Karim, Isis and Shimon! Let the soul of this murderer be imprisoned, so that such a tragedy can no longer be repeated!” Seth exclaimed, stepping forward, followed by the three men and the raven-haired woman. The priests raised one by one some precious objects, twins of those of the pharaoh and the thief, and these lit up, flooding the entire room with their glow.

"Poor fools! Do you believe that those items will be able to imprison me for a long time? They have been forged making sacrifices on my people! I have more right and influence than you have over them!" The criminal exclaimed.

A grin spread across Seth's face. "Maybe they will not hold you forever, but they shall save us enough time to end all this."

"What?!"

"I see that you take particular care of the Millennium Ring of the deceased priest Mahad." The man observed, pointing his sapphire gaze on the pendant that the thief wore around his neck "Since you care so much for it, then rot in it with your misdeeds!"

The rays of light emanating from the objects converged into a single beam, taking over the Bakura ring; the sharp pendants jingled ominously, piercing the flesh of his chest, and the thief gave an inhuman cry.

Lord Muto was forced to look away, blinded by that sea of light, and when he pulled his arms away from his face, moments later, everything around him had vanished.

He was alone again in the maze.

 

Lord Yugi sat on a chair in a corner of the hall where it was possible, through the threshold, to see the closed doors of the library; from time to time the voice of Miss Walsh made him jump.

Several times he had been tempted to knock, to ask for reassurance, but Miss Walsh had been clear: whatever alarming noise had come from the library, his job was to make sure that no one in the house tried to enter, or that he noticed what was happening to the inside during that hypnosis session.

From what he seemed to understand the experiment was in a certain sense successful: the pharaoh Atem had managed to manifest himself in the body of his brother, nevertheless, as expected, he seemed far from willing to cooperate; moreover, till that moment the teenager had not yet had the opportunity to hear his voice.

Lost in those thoughts, he did not realize the insistent tapping of the knocker, till he saw Tea coming from the floors below, adjusting his hair and stopping in front of the door.

"Oh! Mr. Kaiba!"

Hearing the voice of the maid utter that name, Lord Yugi felt his heart in his throat.

He got up from his chair, leaning himself against the wall and staring at the front door, trying not to be seen by the guest.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kaiba had extended his calling card to the attendant, while Mokuba peeped in and peered into the house, impatiently.

"Tell Lord Muto that I urgently need to talk to him. This is a matter of utmost importance." Mr. Kaiba explained to the maid.

Hearing his voice, the three Great Danes lifted their heads from the Persian carpet and, barking and wagging their tails, ran like a fury to the entrance to welcome the new arrivals.

Lord Yugi saw Mokuba running towards them to hug them, and he tortured his lips: he could not order Tea not to let them enter.

Taking a breath, he regained all his coolness and calm, and poked his head out of the hall.

"Who is there, Tea?" He asked, shouting out over the whimpers and barks of Timaeus, Critias and Ermos.

Lord Yugi stopped at the entrance and, meeting the frowning gaze of the Bank of London's director, he gave him a shy smile.

"Mr. Kaiba, Mokuba, what a surprise. What brings you here? Did something happen?" He asked, naturally, dismissing the maid.

"Your brother is at home, I suppose."

Lord Yugi took a few seconds to formulate an adequate response to the bourgeois's question, dropping the silence in the entrance.

"My brother is... temporarily occupied. Let's sit in the living room while we wait for him. He shall join us soon." He said, going into the room “Do you like the Christmas tree, Mokuba? "He asked, noticing the boy staring at the imposing tree in the room, amazed.

"Aye. We also have a huge one." The little boy said, glancing at his brother, who was quietly taking a seat on the sofa, placing a leather folder by his side. "Seto made me find it on the afternoon of Christmas day. He also allowed me to decorate it together with Roland."

"Really? He was lucky to find one,” said Lord Yugi, surprised, turning to the man" A really kind thought. "

A loud thud from the library caught their attention.

Mr. Kaiba's sapphire irises turned in that direction, only to return to Lord Yugi, who sat in front of him.

"Do not pay attention to the noise. Mana is doing the cleaning.” Lord Muto’s brother explained to them.

"Do you allow Mana to take on such a delicate task again?" The man asked.

"Temporarily. The New Year’s Eve Ball is approaching, and Tea is very busy arranging all the preparations with Miss Walsh.” Lord Yugi explained showing an embarrassed smile “Of course, we keep Mana away from my brother's collection of fragile antiques."

"Where is Mr. Crawford?" Mokuba asked, looking and walking around the lounge on Ermos's back.

"Upstairs, I believe. He had correspondence to update."

"Perhaps it would be the case that you sent for your brother." Mr. Kaiba broke his silence, with undisguised impatience, charging Lord Yugi with an impatient and suspicious look.

  
"Good God! Mr. Kaiba is here!” I whispered, pushing my ear away from the sliding door of the library, and looking at Mr. Crawford.

"What? Miss Walsh, you must immediately awaken Lord Muto." The man suggested.

"Fine." I sighed, disappointed at not being able to get any information from the subject "Sir, I must ask you to join the others in the living room to help Lord Yugi distract Mr. Kaiba."

The man stared at me with wide eyes.

"Giosafat! It is out of the question! Would you really think that I’d leave you in here to face a spirit alone?"

I motioned for him to lower his voice, and taking him by the sleeve I pulled him impatiently towards the threshold, in spite of the etiquette.

"Better the spirit than Mr. Kaiba, sir." I emphasized "Go, please, and act natural."

"I must insist, Miss Wal-!"

I did not give him the opportunity. I opened the doors and pushed him out, closing them immediately behind me and turning the key in the lock.

I saw the American’ silhouette, through the colored glass of the door, fidget and then hunch with resignation.

I turned around, realizing with horror only at that moment that Lord Muto's body had vanished from the sofa where I had left him sitting just before.

My heart sank, and I remained motionless on the spot, trying to keep my breathing regular despite the situation.

"Pharaoh?" I looked around me, moving slowly amongst the tall bookshelves, hoping that the wooden floor would signal to me every little movement of the other, allowing me to locate him. "I know you can understand me. I can imagine your bewilderment and your fear at being awakened in a place and at a time quite unlike yours… However, we have no bad intentions towards you, nor do I suppose you have, since it seems you are here rather to warn us about that entity you mentioned yourself. "

I uttered a strangled cry as I saw his blood-colored eyes staring back at me through one of the bookshelves I had on my left, and without realizing it, my body recoiled, moving away towards the opposite corridor.

"L-Listen to me, please!" I begged him. My breath was getting heavier and heavier, and I was sure I would not be able to talk for long without breaking into sobs; part of me again wondered why I wanted to insist up to that point, instead of running away.

I leaned out from behind the shelf where I had taken refuge, trying to see those otherworldly eyes, but they had vanished again.

I went back to that room, which, however small, at that moment seemed to have turned into a huge maze, and my body seemed to have shrunk and became lost in it.

"Fine, pharaoh... To-day I do not want to force you any further. We shall have other opportunities to talk, and by then I sincerely hope that you shall prove more talkative and collaborative. Now... I shall resume the countdown and allow Lord Muto to return to his body. Five... four ... "

I stopped at the bottom of the small corridor made up of shelves; the velvet curtains were closed, and taking a deep breath I held my hand out to them and pulled them sharply aside.

"Three…! What-” I exclaimed, discovering my cat curled up on the windowsill, raising its head and staring at me, sleepily "Soriano! This is not the time to slee-"

The animal emitted a choked meow, leaping to its feet, and when I turned to look over my shoulder, I caught sight of my reflection mirrored in the blood irises of that supernatural creature.

 

 

 

  
A cry spread throughout the Doghouse.

Mokuba was unseated by Ermos, who darted with the two brothers out of the hall, barking and growling with ferocity.

"What was it?" the child exclaimed, dazed, getting to his feet.

Unable to utter a word, Lord Yugi watched Mr. Kaiba get up quickly from the sofa, and without being able to do anything to stop him, he strode with him toward the corridor.

"Oh, Kaiba-boy! You’re back! Did you miss me?” Exclaimed Mr. Crawford, stopping in the middle of the corridor and blocking their way.

The man pushed aside the American and walked the last steps that separated him from the library, stopping in front of the threshold. "That’s enough. Tell me what on earth is going on in this house. Yami and that woman are in there, is that it?” He hissed, threatening, pouncing on the brass handles of the doors and finding them blocked "Yami? Get out of this damn library now."

"Oh, Mr. Kaiba, is that you? "

"Less talk, Miss Walsh, and open this door."

"I am afraid the door is blocked, sir."

"My fault, I fear." Mr. Crawford revealed, attracting the attention of his colleague "I went out for a moment, closing the door behind me, and too late I remembered that the lock was subject to jamming. I was just catching up to ask Lord Yugi for a copy of the keys. Perhaps from the outside we shall be able to open it." he explained, tense, leaning towards Lord Muto’s brother. "Do we have them, my friend?"

"Do we have them? Oh! Y-yes, of course, we have them." Lord Yugi nodded “Ehr... let's see..." he stuttered, taking time and looking for the valet “Christopher? Ah, there you are. Could you go downstairs and look for a copy of the key-? "

Christpher did not have time to fulfill his request.

Just as Lord Yugi turned back toward the door, he saw Mr. Kaiba out of the corner of his eye abandoning his jacket in Mokuba's arms, and striking one of the two doors with a strong, angry shoulder, under the astonished eyes of those present.

A rain of colored glass immediately spread along the wooden floor, rattling, and the door was torn from the wall recess.

  
"Good God!"

I witnessed that surreal show with a mixture of disbelief and horror on my face.

From inside the room, Lord Muto and I stared at Mr. Kaiba stepping on glass and wood splinters, and stopping in front of us, more surly than ever. His blue eyes sent sparks that could set fire to the entire library, if they came into contact with the paper material contained in it, and his hands were a bundle of pulsating nerves.

"For goodness sake, Kaiba!" Lord Muto exclaimed "Would it have cost you too much to wait for Christopher to find the damn keys?"

"Try not to insult my intelligence more than you have done in the past few weeks, Lord Muto." was the cold reply of the bourgeois.

"What happened to your forehead, Miss Walsh?" Mokuba asked me in the meantime.

I exchanged a quick glance with my patient, reassuring him with a nod on the trivial extent of that damage, although at that moment my forehead was throbbing painfully.

"Oh. I collided with one of the shelves, and one of the books fell down, hitting me.” I explained, feeling my swollen skin and holding back a moan. At least that was not a lie. The fear of suddenly finding myself facing the spirit was the cause of all that.

Mr. Kaiba turned his gaze to Lord Muto, who had risen after gently handing me a handkerchief.

"Yugi. Did Mr. Kaiba inform you of the reason for his visit? "He asked coldly, refusing to meet the business man's eyes.

"Well, he..."

"Now you pretend to ignore me?" Mr. Kaiba hissed, annoyed.

"I am giving you the time to regain a bit of your self-control. Please, go ahead into the studio. I shall reach you immediately." was my patient's detached reply, "Yugi, please lead all the guests to the living room. Chsristopher, ask Mana to bring up forehead plasters for Miss Walsh, and some pastries and tea. Have Tea and the valets fix up this disaster, before His Grace returns home."

Relieved to see that I had succeeded in repeating the exchange by bringing my patient's soul back into his body, I could not help but notice that, behind the apparent lucidity and self-control that Lord Muto was demonstrating in front of all of us, a hint of anxiety and exhaustion was veiling his gaze.

“Miss Walsh, did you manage to talk to the pharaoh?” he asked me, in a whisper.

“He took possession of your body, my lord, but I must admit that he has not proved particularly cooperative.” I answered. My patient's gaze rose to the handkerchief I held down on my forehead. “Oh, do not worry, my lord, this is not properly the pharaoh’s fault. Not voluntarily at least...” I stammered.

“Miss Walsh, I have a lot to tell you about my experience,” Lord Muto revealed to me, leaving me astonished “but first, I have to talk to Mr. Kaiba.”

"Really? Did you discover something? But, my lord, you should take some time to rest. Today's experiment must have made you particularly tired, and I believe that Mr. Kaiba can wait...”

“No, Miss Walsh. I am afraid I have already kept him waiting for too long.” he said shaking gently his head and hinting a smile “Do not worry, join the others in the living room and let yourself be medicated. Not from Mana, possibly.” he suggested me, before I saw him vanish upstairs.

Soriano sat down at my feet, meowing and stretching. I lifted it in my arms.

“So, did ‘Your Majesty’ rest well, while I was persecuted by that spirit in the library?” I asked the cat, walking toward the living room.

 

Lord Muto stopped in front of the door of the studio and ran his hand over his tired face, trying to get rid of the chaotic vortex of memories he had witnessed earlier in the maze.

When he crossed the threshold, a part of him already knew the reason for that visit, and he had confirmation of it when, closing the door behind himself, Mr. Kaiba, who was waiting for him, handed him the leather folder he had taken with him.

Lord Muto silently sighed as he held out his hand, grabbing and opening it. His forehead frowned in reading the first lines inside the file.

“What does it mean?” He asked.

"At first it seemed absurd to me thinking that that woman was your solution to the problem, as far as anything can be expected from you." Mr. Kaiba began, "No one in your family had ever heard of her before, especially from you and, moreover, she presented herself here in a decidedly inadequate moment… The first night, when she risked being attacked, she further strengthened my suspicions after our brief interview, in which she insisted that she had no intention of leaving the house and abandon you despite what happened to her. In the following days I asked Roland to keep an eye on her, and days later he found on the blackboard of the library where Miss Walsh often spent her time, strange notes on your symptoms accompanied by a possible diagnosis. Also, yesterday I contacted Dr. Seward again, to find out what? That my previous telegram had never arrived to him. So, who had written the reply that Roland gave me the same evening that informed me of the doctor's absence from Carfax? Roland was in the dining room with Miss Walsh the morning when Pegasus and I went out to the bank. How did that woman know of the message and get it? I doubt my butler would lost the letter or delivered it voluntarily to her."

"This is horrible of you. How could you allow yourself to carry out an unwarranted investigation on Miss Walsh, and invade her privacy to this point?" Lord Muto asked, annoyed, closing the folder and throwing it on the desk.

"I suggest you read till the end."

"No, I shall not. I have no right to be interested in the details of Miss Walsh's private life, and let me say it amazes me that you have stooped to such a low level, Kaiba. What is your point? Did you want to confirm your suspicions to satisfy your pride? Good. You won. Miss Walsh is my therapist and she is trying to find out what is happening to me, as any other competent doctor would do."

"Woman or not, the real problem is that she is practicing the profession without any qualifications, or certification, putting your health at risk further." The man pointed out "I wonder how she is not in jail. How she convinced Roland to give her that missive?"

Lord Muto knew nothing of that particular event, but an idea at that moment was flashing through his mind.

"I am not aware of this…” he admitted “I suppose she had him hypnotized."

Mr. Kaiba’s eyebrows furrowed. "Damn, Yami! I wish you could hear yourself talking! Even to-day, were you locked in the library for the same reason? Did you let her hypnotize you? Have you ever realized that she could have manipulated you by taking advantage of your condition?” he asked, scornful “Of course not. You always have this proverbial trust in everyone.”

"If you did such an in-depth investigation as you say, you should be aware that my father knew and respected Dr. Walsh. This is not a lie. Moreover, it is not a piece of paper and a title that are ultimate proof a person's skills and seriousness, but their actions. Do you think I would have hired her if I had not ascertained her skills first? Miss Walsh has my full support.” The young lord retorted, "Why are you doing such a thing? Tell me, why is it so difficult for you to show trust in the choices I make lately?"

"You mean the choices you did not inform me about?" Mr. Kaiba hissed, in a barely audible voice, startling Lord Muto "You were the first not to show trust in me, since your problem began, and now you ask me why I am not giving you confidence? Moreover, you look at me as if I were mad for what I took the liberty to do! All I did was act like any person kept in the dark by the person who they thought they could trust! Am I a horrible person for searching for answers that I could not get from you? Am I a horrible person for contacting a valid and trustworthy specialist who could help you? Do I deserve your blame for trying to find out if the person who has been close to you for less than two weeks and who is improvising as doctor, really deserves more trust than what you have placed in me? You led me to all this, Yami. You made me the horrible person whose actions, in your opinion, deserve only blame. So, now tell me, what makes your choices justifiable and mine despicable? "

Those statements had not been shouted. Perhaps they had not even been able to get past the walls of the studio, but for the young lord they had been far worse than a violent tsunami; a quiet, well-articulated hiss that had turned into a shower of blades that had pierced the noble’s heart.

Lord Muto was ashamed in front of his partner’s gaze. The words failed him, as he perceived tears surfacing and moistening his eyes, and a fragility till that moment had been hidden from anyone's eyes, emerged through his features.

Why had he failed to realize what Mr. Kaiba was feeling before he came to hurt him so deeply? It had never been his intention to deprive him of his trust and hurt him that way. As far as the events of the last few weeks had driven them away from each other, it was Lord Muto who had placed that additional barrier between them.

The young noble tried to push away the unpleasant feeling of fragility that was preventing him from facing the businessman; after long minutes of tense silence spent on the useless search for the right words, he crossed the room, stopping behind him.

Mr. Kaiba leaned against the fireplace, his back to him; his patient silence frightened Lord Muto as never before.

He had hurt the bourgeois’s pride and, despite the latter’s anger and fierce disappointment were consuming him, he was still trying to show confidence in the young lord, he was still trying to make him understand how important their bond had been to him up to that point, staying in to find out if their relationship deserved a second chance, or was destined to end forever.

Everything about them was now in the balance in Lord Muto’s hands; if he was wrong again, Mr. Kaiba would not only have left the studio, but also his life. He would have done it forever.

The nobleman's lips quivered.

"I am sorry.” he said calmly “Miss Walsh advised me to reveal you everything, but I have not found the strength. This time I did not succeed.”

“What was different this time?” Mr. Kaiba asked him, grimly.

What reason led Lord Muto to think that this time he was not worthy of his trust? Mr. Kaiba wanted to know, despite the strong temptation to leave him was so deep at that moment; leaving was not as easy as he had thought, because of their strong bond, he could not simply drop the question and continue his life as if nothing had happened.

Unlike many other people, that young man had been the one who had made the difference in his life, becoming a piece of him, and if indeed Mr. Kaiba was intent on wanting to tear away that piece that had become part of himself, he had to face him till the end, listening to his words till the last, to make sure he never have to lower himself to regrets.

“Did you hear?” he insisted “What was different this time?”

“Me.”

Mr. Kaiba did not move and stayed silent, so the young lord continued looking up at him and clenching his fists.

“I was unable to recognize myself in my behavior. The nights I hurt you and Mana I got scared of myself.” Lord Muto revealed to him “The discomfort I felt growing towards myself clouded me, so I could not help but start thinking that soon you would begin to despise me for my weakness and fragility.” he admitted “I wanted to prevent you from seeing me this way, so I have tried to find a solution that would help me, without further involving all of you.” he explained “But I was wrong. With my behavior, I have done nothing but make us both insecure."

Mr. Kaiba winced; his blue eyes opened wide as he finally turned back to his partner. “Insecure? Me?” he repeated. “Are you telling me I was as weak as you?”

“As you said, I made you feel that way.” was the placid reply of the young lord.

Mr. Kaiba stared at his partner, dumbfounded; as hard was to accept those last words, Lord Muto was right: exposing his last actions and looking for answers, Mr. Kaiba had done nothing but show him his insecurities, his weaknesses first.

Lord Muto held out his hand, and slightly touched his companion's, limiting himself to keeping his gaze fixed on him.

“It is hard, isn’t it? We both have been taught that we must not show our weaknesses to nobody, but you are not “nobody” to me, despite I did not have the courage to show it to you.” he said, by loosening the grip on the partner's hand “If I were to lose you I could not accept it,” Lord Muto admitted, “but I could understand it.”

After those words, Mr. Kaiba looked away, his lips tightening with anger; shame and disgust flared his chest. Lord Muto was right, but it was hard accepting that truth. However, when he looked stealthily at the young lord next to him, he found his charming gaze sustaining its, without any shadow to cross it, clear and steady as Mr. Kaiba had not seen it lately.

They were both made of flesh and blood, and so many facets were part of them, weaknesses and fears as well, like for everyone; both of them have insecurities and a strong pride that sometimes leaded them to make mistakes, but this did not necessarily erased or alienated the parts of the persons they were and the characteristics which had led them to approach one another.

As much angry with Lord Muto he was, Mr. Kaiba had to admit to himself that no one knew and read him as deeply as the young lord do, and no one before had been able to goad the businessman’s pride, without ever mortifying it, without premeditating the intent to humiliate him and make him feel inferior, but enough to provide that extra gear to their daily life and to make them understand something that would have elevated them on the same level, without ever disadvantaging either one.

Surprisingly, it was thanks to that emerged awareness that they both had found each other again. Without it, it would have been nothing but a useless roar generated by wounded prides.

“Do not get me wrong.” Mr. Kaiba said, coldly, staving off the partner’s hand. “From now on, things between us will change. Are you aware of this?”

Lord Muto calmly nodded under the indecipherable gaze of the other. He knew that Mr. Kaiba would need more time to regain confidence and return to considering him fully worthy of his respect. What worried the noble most was if he would have ever succeed, if he had revealed him everything about the story of the Puzzle and the spirit of the pharaoh...

He sat on the desk and handed the folder to the man.

“What I need to know about Miss Walsh, I already know. She is a good person, and when I saw her not to stop at the appearance of things, I was certain that I had chosen the right person; I have full trust in her.” he reassured him, looking at the man in front of him, who was carefully listening his words, evaluating each of them. ”Kaiba, I know you are very worried about me, moreover I am not in the right position to make requests to you, but... we are very close to a turning and very delicate point.” Lord Muto revealed him “At the beginning my symptoms deceived us leading us to think that mine could be a problem of Identity Disorder. But these last days, thanks to Miss Walsh’s researches and her hypnosis sessions, there have been progresses. Now we know what we have to face. The problem that afflicts me is not less serious than the previous one, but unlike the identity disorder, if we could find the solution, I could hope for complete recovery.” he explained “So, given the delicate circumstances, may I ask you to let her do her job till the end, giving her your trust?”

Mr. Kaiba’s eyebrows furrowed, as he silently looked at him; there was a strong perplexity and mistrust that crossed his blue eyes.

“Do you have any idea what you are asking me? You are in no condition to ask me-”

“I am aware of it.” Lord Muto asserted bending his lips in a melancholy smile “Right now we are the last persons to trust in, isn’t it? I have been putting you to the test a lot in recent days, but I would not ask you such a thing if it was not so important to me. To all us. I am the first to want to leave this problem behind me as soon as possible and return to normal.”

The businessman looked intently at him, letting silence fill the studio. He lifted his jacket from the nearby armchair and reached the door.

“Fine. But this is my condition: keep me informed. In case of complications of any kind, I want you to contact me immediately. This is all I ask of you.”

Lord Muto raised his eyes on him and nodded, turning to him a look and a smile of deep gratitude, lingering on his partner’s sapphire-blue gaze.

The proud and melancholy face of the priest Seth overlapped for a moment with that of his partner, and in looking at Mr. Kaiba leaving the room, Lord Muto could not help but hope that he and his partner were reserved a better fate than the pharaoh’s and of his priest’s one.

  
**CONTINUE. (Next chapter up Wednesday August 28th.)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)Hair Jewelry: Although hair jewelry existed prior to the Victorian era, it was this period that saw it flourish as a trade and private craft in mourning jewelry. The 19th century saw a rise in mourning practices due to its popularity through Queen Victoria, and wearing hair jewelry (necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches, earrings etc.) was seen as a form of carrying love and devotion for the deceased (a son, a parent, a lover, etc.). The hair was worked with patience by true professionists, in floral shapes, braids, circles, or intertwined to wires and nets of metal, and it was often very difficult to recognize that those small works of art so finely worked were hair. I strongly suggest you take a look at [them](https://www.pinterest.it/joannaslan/victorian-hair-mourning-jewelry/).


End file.
